Going Back in Time (Eeth Koth & Raven Trebeck)
by SWFicWriters
Summary: Summary: Sequel to 'Ready for Action'. Eeth pursues a mission to his birthplace of Nar Shaddaa. There, he will be forced to face past demons that Raven's experience with death sticks rekindled. Warning: This story contains spanking scenes of a non-sexual, disciplinary nature and occasional coarse language. Don't enjoy, don't read. We do not endorse the spanking of real children.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Heya to all who have followed us and to any new faces! We're glad you found us and hope that you enjoy this as much as we have loved creating it.

Our stories originated as online role-playing and are situated in our alternative Star Wars universe – well, mainly the universe of Episode One, pretending that the tragedy of the Great Jedi Purge never happened. Ahem. There are approximately twenty-five stories pre-written in this series which focuses on Master Eeth Koth and his padawan learner Raven Trebeck. Although each story can stand alone, it might be a better reading experience to start from the beginning with "Of Padawans Fake and True".

"Going Back in Time", the sequel to "Ready for Action", is set just two weeks after Eeth, Lakhri and Raven returned from their last mission on Larivan. Eeth will face the demons that Raven's death stick escapade conjured up. Meanwhile, Raven will experience a new world, some unpleasant customs, and gain valuable experience that will edge her that step closer to achieving her goal of knighthood.

Now for some housekeeping. Okay, so let's face it, authority and discipline are central themes to our stories. We realise that our master characters, especially Eeth, will at times come across as harsh. However, please keep in mind that this is a fictional universe in which teenagers with extraordinary, potentially lethal abilities are raised to do an incredibly hard, dangerous and responsible job. Their masters feel an obligation to keep them in line in order to protect them and others by various types of discipline, including corporal punishment, i.e., spanking with the hand and different implements. And sometimes, they will need to dispense with the cuddling and tell their charges to do their duty. These are teenagers, after all, not small children. There will always be times to offer comfort and moments of closeness between master and padawan, but they might sometimes have to wait. Plus, masters might have their own issues … which is certainly true for Eeth. His journey with Raven is a learning experience for him as much as for his padawan.

Fortunately for our padawans, our master characters have near-magical healing abilities at their disposal, allowing us to indulge our preference for strict discipline. There will always be character development, depth and growth throughout all our writing, so there's more to them than just spankings. But, yeah, there is and will always be spanking. ;) We do realise that this is not everybody's cup of tea, and we suggest that you not read our writing if it's going to bother you.

If you like our stories (or if you don't like them for reasons other than those of which you have been warned), let us know in a review; we love to hear what you guys think. Okay, so here we go. Enjoy.

* * *

Eeth made his way home from the Council chambers, deep in thought. He was still not sure whether he had made the right decision. After all, they had just returned from their mission to Larivan two weeks ago, and he was still carrying his padawan's lightsaber on his belt. To involve her in something like this just because he felt that he needed to face his own fears? Then again, with his fears left buried inside him, as they had apparently been for a long time, he would always be in danger of letting them guide him, and that might be an even bigger danger for his padawan.

He shook off these thoughts as he palmed open the door to their quarters, hoping that Raven might have managed to prepare some dinner, for he was home later than he had expected. What was done was done, and there was no point in dwelling on it.

"Padawan?" he called.

_a. A neutron star whose mass is 1.4 M is in orbit about a normal star. Matter is bowing from the normal star onto the collapsed star at a rate of 10(17) grams per second. _

_i. Assume that all of the gravitational potential energy of the infalling matter is converted to radiation. Compute the bolometric luminosity of the neutron star. _

"Kill me, somebody? Anybody! Please?" Raven thought, dropping her head into her palm with a harder slap than she had intended. She rubbed at her head. Force, there were some four-hundred BILLION stars in their stupid galaxy, and right now Raven hated all of them, especially this one! She pushed the datapad aside. Where was Lakhri when she needed him? Busy, that was where. Her Jedi brother had his own classes to teach, and as a result, he wasn't able to spend as much time with her as the padawan would like. She was about to start writing when Eeth entered, whereupon she happily ditched the stylus and jumped to her feet.

"Master," Raven greeted him, offering a curt bow. "What took you so long?" The expression on his face was noted with slight apprehension. Sure, Raven had been a model student over the past weeks, but then, one never did know and the thought of losing her lightsaber for the third week in a row was not at all appealing.

Defying all her expectations, Eeth unceremoniously unclipped Raven's saber from his belt and handed it to her.

"I suppose you will need it," he said wryly. "We are leaving for Nar Shaddaa in…" – he glanced at his wrist chrono – "… two hours. Do you happen to have any dinner for me?"

Wordlessly, Raven pointed towards a covered bowl sitting on their kitchen bench. However, all her attention was now focused on the saber in her hand and the fact that they were leaving for Nar Shaddaa in two hours. Once the weapon was safely stowed on her belt where it belonged, she followed Eeth into the kitchen.

"Thank you for letting me have it back," she said, unconsciously placing a protective hand over the hilt.

"Well, as I said, you might need it," Eeth replied while lifting the cover from the bowl. He glanced briefly at its contents and then placed it in the heater.

Raven nodded. She wasn't about to argue this as two weeks without her lightsaber had been more than enough to bear. "Nar Shaddaa? For real?" It was rhetorical, but the surprise in her tone was unmistakable. Firstly, it was where Eeth had been born. And secondly, it had a reputation as being one of the seediest places in the galaxy. They didn't call it the smuggler's moon for nothing, after all.

"Why are we going there?" she asked. It was a fair enough question, too. It was just not particularly easy to answer for Eeth who had had his own reasons for volunteering for this assignment and, in fact, had argued his case quite vehemently for more than an hour because a significant number of Council members had had serious doubts whether Nar Shaddaa was a suitable destination for a twelve-year-old.

"Well, obviously, we have been assigned a mission," he said while washing his hands. "An undercover agent has discovered a young child that is extremely strong in the Force in the slums of Nar Shaddaa. Such children are in immense danger because the syndicates, crime lords and gangs are all eager to make use of their talents. The child will have to be brought to safety, possibly for education at the Temple or, if he is too old for that, to another place."

He took a spoon out of a drawer and brought the bowl to the table. The deeper reason for which he had volunteered for this mission was complex and he was not sure he wanted to disclose it to his padawan. When he had learned that, during their return from Larivan, Raven had been exposed to death sticks, this had roused an ire in him that he had not known he was capable of. His meditations had revealed that the real cause of that ire was fear; a fear that was rooted in his childhood in Nar Shaddaa. For nearly forty years, he had believed that he was in control of his childhood memories; that they had no emotional impact on him. Clearly, he had been wrong. That had been deeply unsettling to Eeth, and he had thought about ways of dealing with his fears ever since. For the past twenty years, he had avoided going to Nar Shaddaa as much as possible, and even when there had been no way to avoid it, he had not gone to the slums where he had grown up. In the past two weeks, he had come to realise that this had not only been cowardly but also wrong. He needed to confront his fears, rather than hide from them, and consequently he had decided to accept the first mission for Nar Shaddaa that came up. He had not expected this to happen quite as fast – but maybe it was the will of the Force?

Voicing none of these thoughts to Raven, he merely said, "You may start packing. I will do so as well once I have finished eating."

Okay, so Raven was excited, and she didn't bother trying to hide that fact. Jumping into the air, she took off for her bedroom to do as bade, only to pull up mid-spring. "What do you want me to pack?" she asked, not wanting to waste time having to redo the task.

"No uniforms, nothing that points to your Jedi status," Eeth replied. "Just toiletries and a few sets of street clothes. The climate is moderate, similar to Coruscant. We will find a store of clothes that will be suitable for a stay on Nar Shaddaa on the ship. We will need to stay undercover."

Raven didn't own much in the way of street clothing. She did, however, have the cargo pants, singlet and overshirt she had kept from their last mission to Larivan. It was a rather tidy-looking outfit, the padawan observed while checking herself out in the mirror. Definitely too tidy for a place like Nar Shaddaa, so it was a good thing that they had stuff on the ship to fall back on. Satisfied with the packing, Raven tossed the bag aside and took a quick shower; Eeth had done this himself before their last mission, and she was trying to follow his example.

Forty-five minutes later, the padawan wandered into the common room. Her hair was washed and brushed out, clothes clean and bag packed. She was totally ready for this, and her expression said exactly that!

Eeth was still in his room packing his bag and changing into civilian clothes. He emerged into the common room a while later, dressed in a pair of tight silvery pants, a fashionably torn shirt that showed much of his torso and a blue leather jacket. He had also braided his hair. Upon noticing Raven's surprised expression, he explained, a tad distastefully, "This is the kind of clothing that will look inconspicuous on Nar Shaddaa. People might take me for a gang leader or some other type of person that they would not want to mess with, which will be helpful. But nobody will care much what you are dressed like, as long as you do not look like a Jedi or a law enforcement officer. We can think of a cover story and find matching clothes for you on the ship. Are you ready?"

"Yes, master. Ready. Let's do this thing," Raven replied, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from chuckling at his outlandish appearance. It wasn't every day she saw her typically immaculate-looking master dressed like a teenage punk rocker. Well, he had a lot more to choose from in his closet than she, which was to be expected given that he had decades of mission experience behind him. Raven was only just beginning.

Eeth took Raven to the hangar where their ship was waiting for them. It was a very small and very fast vessel which held hardly more than the cockpit and a cabin with two double bunks, a table with four chairs and a few closets. These were stocked with clothes, food, a heating unit, medical equipment and sanitary items. There was a very small refresher tucked in between the cabin and the cockpit. The rest of the ship contained the engines, weapons and shield generators, for no one in their right mind would approach Nal Hutta or its moon without an armed spaceship.

"Drop your bag on one of the bunks and get strapped into the co-pilot's seat," Eeth told Raven. "l will make use of the flight to teach you the essentials of piloting."

Raven did so wordlessly. From the outside, their ship looked like it packed some serious heat, but the inside? "Uh, I take it this will be no trip to Larivan," she commented, looking around the cramped interior.

"No," said Eeth plainly. "Time is of the essence; comfort is not. This ship will take us to Nar Shaddaa in two days. Now, you need to plot a course. Activate the manual navigation console."

When she had done so, he took her through a thorough lesson in navigation until they had entered hyperspace, whereupon he switched to autopilot.

Raven loved flying and would have manually piloted their ship for the entire two days if Eeth would let her! Of course, such a thing wasn't at all feasible, as fun as she thought it would be. She looked over at Eeth, a wholly satisfied smile on her face. "That was freakin' awesome. Thank you, I can't wait to do that again." Raven was serious, too, she loved anything and everything about piloting.

"You will be allowed to enrol in piloting classes in a few months," replied Eeth. "Now join me in the cabin. We need to discuss our mission."

Still on a high from the piloting, not to mention the fact that they were on a mission – to Nar Shaddaa, no less! – Raven sprang from the co-pilot's chair and followed him out.

"Alright," said Eeth, taking Raven to the cabin and sitting down at the table. "What do you know about Nar Shaddaa?"

"That it's an ecumenopolis moon of the planet Nal Hutta, where lots of smugglers, crime lords and pirates like to hang out. It's on the outer rim in Hutt space where the Republic has no presence; it's run by the Hutt. Oh, and pretty dirty, too," Raven answered.

"True," Eeth said curtly. He handed her a datapad. "This contains detailed information about Nar Shaddaa, and more specifically, the slums. Before you read it, I will give you a rough outline of what our mission is about. As I told you, we need to retrieve a Force-sensitive child from Nar Shaddaa. It is a human boy, about two years of age, who lives in the lower levels. We know practically nothing about him, other than the fact that one of our undercover operatives discovered the boy lifting objects by using the Force on a street corner in the slums. Our agent had no opportunity to talk to the boy, let alone retrieve him; that would have blown his cover, and it might also have drawn attention to the boy. Slave traders, crime lords and gang leaders alike are very much interested in getting their hands on Force-sensitive children and training them from an early age. Thus, being too young to really understand his powers, the child is in great danger. I remember that I always avoided revealing my powers to anyone when I lived on Nar Shaddaa; someone, possibly my mother, must have warned me against it at an early age. I might not have survived otherwise until the Jedi found me, or I might have ended up killing in order to survive."

"I'm sorry that you had that happen to you," Raven said earnestly, not quite sure how best to console him over this. What little Eeth had shared of his past sounded pretty dark to Raven, and she knew that he wouldn't exactly be thrilled over returning.

"Thank you, padawan, but you need not be," Eeth said. "It was not your fault, and maybe it was the will of the Force. It certainly made me develop my skills to a degree I might not otherwise have reached. I was able to heal myself at an early age, for example. Being strong in the Force can be a great blessing, or it can be a curse. What matters is that we retrieve the child before it becomes the latter. Now, please read the information on Nar Shaddaa carefully. The file includes a map that shows where the child has been located by our agent, as well as a description of the child. You will find plenty of information about that sector of Nar Shaddaa as well. You may read for an hour, then we will turn in. Tomorrow, we will discuss our strategy for finding the boy."

"Alright," Raven said through a yawn. She took the datapad to her bunk, where she sprawled out and started reading. The information was fascinating to the padawan, who had never been anywhere like this before. As it turned out, 'dirty' was quite an understatement, more so in the slum sectors where they were heading. Before she knew it, Eeth said the time was up. Raven set the datapad aside for later and rose from her bed.

"Let us perform our evening meditation and go to bed," said Eeth. "We might not get as much sleep as we would like once we are on Nar Shaddaa. We should make the most of our time aboard the ship."

Although meditation had always been difficult for the fidgety apprentice, she enjoyed meditating with Eeth. This evening was no exception. They ended up meditating a little longer than usual because Raven had built up a whirlwind of emotions courtesy of their pending mission. It was mostly excitement, but there was also a little apprehension and fear of failure. Sure, the last mission had been a success, but she had still managed to land herself in a world of trouble over James and his stupid death sticks. She cringed slightly as the memory flashed to life again, and she released the emotion into the Force. When Raven opened her eyes, she gave Eeth a crooked grin. It wasn't easy to share your emotions with another, and although she didn't mind so much with Eeth, sometimes she couldn't help but feel a bit un-Jedilike at having so much crap to deal with.

Eeth returned the grin with a small smile of his own but his mind was elsewhere. Despite his own prolonged meditation, he slept badly that night. He had a hard time fighting the memories that kept surfacing, and when he finally fell asleep, it was a restless sleep that ended early even by his own standards. By the time he woke up Raven, he had already meditated for an hour and a half, managing to reach a certain level of tranquillity again. The Force had been his refuge as an infant on Nar Shaddaa, and seeking refuge in the Force had never ceased to work for him.

* * *

"Time to get up, padawan," he said, his face and voice betraying none of the inner turmoil he had gone through that night. "We need to make plans. Take a quick shower and get dressed. I will make us some breakfast." The cupboards held a wide variety of dehydrated starship food, none of it particularly exciting, but they needed to eat.

Raven had slept well, but as was typical for her, she wasn't happy about being woken up. She really wasn't a morning person, although a shower usually fixed that.

"Are you okay?" Raven asked, exiting their tiny refresher while towelling her hair dry. Eeth's Force presence felt a little more 'worn' than she was accustomed.

"Yes," said Eeth after a moment's hesitation, his hands clasped around a cup of tea. "This mission brings up a lot of memories, but that was to be expected. It is nothing I cannot deal with." So far, this was true. He just hoped it would stay that way.

"The lower levels of Nar Shaddaa are not a pleasant place," he said in an attempt to inconspicuously change the topic. "Much worse than Coruscant's, and that is saying something. Of course, you have not been to the lower levels often."

Unconvinced, yet disinclined to verbally push him to reveal more than he was willing, the padawan tried to get a better sense of him through their bond without being intrusive.

"No, not often," Raven agreed as it was true; she had nothing noteworthy to draw upon regarding the lower levels of Coruscant and certainly nothing that would help with their mission on Nar Shaddaa.

"Well, I would not have taken you to the lower levels without any good reason," Eeth pointed out.

He gave her a scrutinising look, noting her attempt to read his feelings and her obvious concern.

"Padawan, you need not worry about me," he told her softly. "I know what I am doing. This will not be easy for me, but it needs to be done. if you want to do me any favours, stay at my side, do not get lost and, above all, avoid any unnecessary dangers to yourself. There are more dangers in the slums of Nar Shaddaa than you could possibly imagine. You need to be on your guard."

"I will be," Raven replied, and she meant that, too. Raven would do her best not to add to his woes; she always did, not that her efforts were always successful.

Setting the brush on the table, the padawan took up the chair opposite Eeth and started pulling her hair into something that would pass as neat and tidy. Thankfully, these days this was much easier as the short bob cut she had sported during her creche years had been allowed to grow out, and it was now almost to her collarbone. "So, what are we supposed to do for the next thirty-something hours, anyway?" Raven asked, but before he could answer that, she held up a hand. "And before you ask, yes, I'm done reading the mission file."

"Among other things, we will think up a convincing cover story," said Eeth. "Let us clean up, meditate, and then discuss it. I will want to hear your ideas."

Which was exactly what they did.

An hour later, Raven was stretched out on her bed, one leg up the wall, while Eeth sat at the table with his datapad. She had given some thought to the sort of backstory that might work for them. It had to be something that wasn't such a stretch that it might be too hard for her limited experience to pull off, yet plausible enough to be believable. "Maybe you are a gang leader, and I am a Force-sensitive that you've trained to help you? You know, like what happens to some Force-sensitive children on Nar Shaddaa that are found by gangs," Raven suggested.

Eeth nodded. "IThis would be plausible," he said, "but it has a drawback, which is that no gang will tolerate the presence of other gang leaders in their territory. This story would expose us to attacks. But the Force-sensitive idea might work. Which leaves the question who I would pretend to be and what my relationship to you might be. I need to be either important enough that people in the lower levels won't dare touch or try to rob me or I would have to be someone who is not interesting to them. Any ideas?"

Raven conceded that he had made good points; they would need to come up with something better. She tapped a fingernail against the wall, thinking.

After a long pause, Raven sat up to face him, pulling her knees into her chest. "If you can't be a gang leader, is it possible that you could claim to be working for one? Like, a bounty hunter or something?" The mission report Eeth had given her to read contained a bit of information on the different wars going on between various crime bosses, the most notable being the Hutt Cartel. It might just be possible to pass off as in their service given how huge the organisation was, or at least she hoped so. In any case, it was the best she could come up with.

"That might work," Eeth said. "I anticipate problems as soon as we start looking for a Force-sensitive child, however. When people hear that one of those is around, they might feel tempted to catch it first and get money out of it, or rivalling gang leaders might compete with us for the child. And then the person we are supposedly working for will hear of us and our story will fall apart. All in all, I think we have only one sensible option, and that is to make it seem – without ever being too specific – that we are working for the Hutt. Nobody messes with the Hutt on Nar Shaddaa. If we claim to be working on a top-secret mission for someone very high up, nobody will dare to ask for specifics, and few people will risk to interfere and incur the Hutts' wrath. It would allow us to evade concrete questions, and it would also give us an excuse to go around buying information. What do you think?"

"I think that it's a great idea," Raven agreed, a touch of excitement showing in her expression now. "So, we're seeking out Force-sensitives for some non-specific Hutt, and I get to be your sidekick. This is going to be so cool."

Eeth raised his eyebrows at the notion of anything related to Nar Shaddaa being 'cool'. "Please refrain from telling anyone any more than absolutely necessary," he said. "In the lower levels of Nar Shaddaa, it would be suspicious to talk about your identity or intentions. You just have to give people some way to make sense of you. If they feel you are a total outsider, secretive, but powerless, then you are as good as dead. And that leads me back to your question as to what we are going to do during the trip. Everything about you – the way you talk, the way you move – says 'outsider'. We need to work on that. It is fortunate that you know some Huttese. We can build on that."

He handed her a datapad. "These are holovid sequences showing people from Nar Shaddaa and recording the way they talk. I want you to watch them and listen to them closely. Afterwards, we will practice."

Raven accepted the datapad and kicked back on her bunk once again. At least this wasn't more reading as the padawan was quite certain that Eeth had run out of stuff to make her read. Yeah, probably not. She wasn't going to mention that, in any case.

As it turned out, the holo sequences were not only interesting but also contained a lot of useful information about body language, posture, speech patterns, tells and other cues that would come in very useful. Now, if only she could put it all together and remember when it counted!

"So it's a mixture of Basic, Huttese and cursing," Raven said in way of announcing that she was done with the material. She sat up on the bed once again and levitated the datapad back to the table.

"Yes, we will see about that in a moment," Eeth said drily. "First things first: your posture. You should not look too self-confident and relaxed, and not too fearful and insecure either. Both will mark you out as a potential victim of attacks. You will best blend in if you look wary, distrustful and well-armed. You will, in fact, be well-armed because I will provide you with a blaster. Drawing your lightsaber will be a last resort, so you will need another weapon. Do you know how to handle a blaster?"

"You're letting me have a blaster?" The question was rhetorical, but with the mention, all thoughts of her posture and the Huttese lesson with Eeth went out the waste hatch. Raven had done a session or two of basic training with blasters during creche, but this was as far as it went. "Not for real. I've shot at some targets once or twice. Hey, can I have it now? Please?"

"No," Eeth said decisively. "I will give it to you shortly before our arrival. Even without much practice, if you rely on the Force to guide you, you will be able to strike your target. You will only use it if you are in real danger or when I tell you to. Blasters are not toys, and I detest having to give you one, but anything else would be grossly negligent. Now go to the closet and pick out some clothes that you think will match your role, based on what you have seen in the films I gave you."

Rolling her eyes, and barely resisting the urge to repeat his 'blasters aren't toys' comment in a mock-Eeth tone, Raven stood and went to the closet. As it turned out, the closet was full of choices; the only hard part, she thought, was deciding on something she liked. Eventually, the padawan took an armful of clothes to her bunk and began piecing together an outfit that she thought would work.

"Now we match," said Raven sometime later. She stood so Eeth could see what she had put together while messing with a buckle on a wrist strap. Raven had decided on a black pleated mini skirt, striped skull singlet with matching arm warmers, and a pair of knee-to-boot buckled leg warmers, all of which were either black, red or both and looked very punk. "I would have chosen the pants, but the buckles were annoying, and they don't fit as well as this. It's the most practical I could manage. What do you think?" she asked, hoping he wouldn't make her take it off and start over. Well, it was not like this could go too far wrong; after all, the Temple would hardly have stocked the closet full of stuff that would ultimately have them recognised and blow their cover.

"This will work," Eeth said with a nod. "A lot more expensive than what most people in the lower levels can afford, but then, we will pretend to come from the upper levels. Or even from Nal Hutta. We need not tell. Now we will practice speaking." He leaned back in his chair and threw a leg onto the table, suddenly looking nothing like a Jedi master. As he started talking about the unlucky fate of a dealer who had tried to sell him fake death sticks, he effortlessly fell into the slang he had learned to speak as a toddler, a mixture of Basic, Huttese and swear words.

Raven's eyebrows rose higher with each action Eeth took. He looked and sounded nothing like himself which she guessed was kind of the point! Okay, so the padawan was pretty sure her effort would not be nearly as convincing as Eeth's, but she was going to give it a try. Raven spun the chair around to straddle it backwards, cocked a brow and glanced at her fingernails nonchalantly. "Why, that doompa, dopa-maskey kung! I hope you made him suffer," she attempted to say with conviction, although her grasp on the Nar Shaddaa variant of Huttese wasn't exactly stellar.

Eeth nodded. "Not bad," he said, "but you are overenunciating. Your Huttese pronunciation sounds as if you took lessons, and your Basic pronunciation sounds too educated. Better build in a slight slur, like this."

He repeated what she had before, managing to make it sound much dirtier.

Raven tried again, and again, and again, each time adding an extra word, slouch or slur until she managed to get it close. It wasn't perfect but it didn't matter, they had another full and night day of spaceship travel left to practice.

Eeth continued to drill Raven relentlessly for several more hours until he thought that there was a definite improvement in her ability to appear like someone who lived on Nar Shaddaa.

"That will be adequate," he finally said. "We will practice some more later, but there is other work to be done this afternoon. One more thing: you will be considered a slave or a quasi-slave. That means you do not speak unless spoken to, and you follow my lead in all things without complaints. If you fail to do so, people will expect me to punish you, and the way in which slaves are punished on Nar Shaddaa, especially by people working for the Hutt, is quite a bit nastier than what you are used to."

Raven snorted at the latter. Naively, the padawan thought that there wasn't much that could trump his cane.

Eeth ignored this and continued, "Try not to bring me into a situation where I would look anything but authentic if I did not slap you across the face, kick you or strike you with a fibreglass rod."

"I will do my best, but if you have to punish me for anything, please don't kick me, I think I might actually die."

"Do not be ridiculous," said Eeth matter-of-factly. "As if I would ever kick you that hard. Even a slave dealer would not, by the way; Force-sensitive slaves are far too valuable."

"That's, um, comforting," she said in a slightly meek tone. She contemplated the rest of what he had said. Okay, so being a slave or quasi-slave couldn't be that hard to pull off. Besides, she was used to taking orders and being grouched at, she reasoned. Her head tilted to one side as she thought more, and then Raven met him with a quizzical expression. "What's a fibreglass rod?" Raven wasn't sure if she really wanted to know, but then again, she was no coward.

Eeth stood up and opened the clothes cupboard. He hunted through it until he found a long and thin fibreglass rod.

Turning around, he showed it to Raven. "This is what most slave owners use," he told her. "And if you think my cane hurts, you do not want to be beaten with one of these. I will carry it around with me because people would expect me to but I do not want to be put in a situation where I have to use it on you."

"Say if you had to punish me with that, you, well, you would aim for my backside, right?" Raven was doing a credible job at acting unfazed by this, but then, his choice of verb had caused a certain amount of apprehension. Eeth wouldn't actually beat her, Raven was sure of that, but even faking one was bound to be an unpleasant experience!

"I will try to avoid using it on you at all," Eeth replied. "If I absolutely had to, I would probably do as any slaver does and hit your back, your legs, your bottom or your arms. Whatever is closest."

Raven swallowed at hearing that, yet her expression was now more intrigue than apprehension. "Has anyone ever beaten you with one of those before?"

Eeth paused for a moment. "Yes, they have," he finally replied. "It was not on Nar Shaddaa, though; it was on an undercover mission to the Outer Rim, as a young knight. I needed to infiltrate a crime lord's household and the only way to do so was to be sold to him as a slave. It wasn't pleasant."

"How come he beat you, what did you do?" she asked, unable to imagine a scenario wherein Eeth earned any sort of punishment.

"Oh, it was not him who beat me," Eeth replied, "it was one of his daughters. She just wanted to play, I think. I assume she liked my body. Luckily, Zabrak are notorious for being well able to deal with pain, and I am fairly proficient at Force-aided healing. It was still quite painful but, like I said, nobody would want to damage valuable property beyond repair."

"She just wanted to play?" Raven looked surprised. Sure, she knew that crime and cruelty existed, but up until this point, the idea that someone might be cruel for their own pleasure had never occurred to her.

"Obviously, there is still much you need to learn about the galaxy," Eeth said wryly. "There are a lot of beings who take pleasure in other beings' pain; and in the lower levels of Nar Shaddaa, you will see a fair share of them. It is quite disgusting, but it is precisely what we will have to deal with."

Suddenly, Raven felt a whole lot of sympathy for slaves on Nar Shaddaa. Still, she was not easily intimidated, and even when she was, the padawan hid it relatively well from most people; not Eeth, though. "Force, why are people so mean, what's wrong with them?" She paused just long enough for another thought to occur, not that Raven was willing to voice it. Besides, it was unlikely that Eeth would approve if she asked if he'd taken revenge on the woman.

"Padawan, there are a lot of evil people around," Eeth said, "and it is not always possible to discern their motives. You have to be tough in order to survive on Nar Shaddaa, and those who show too much compassion usually do not; most of those who survive only manage to do so because they learn to use violence. Force-sensitive children who grow up there run a grave risk of being treated cruelly but they run an even greater risk of becoming cruel persons themselves. When faced with constant violence, it is infinitely easier to fall to the Dark Side than to maintain respect for the sanctity of human life. I can remember facing numerous situations in which it would have been the easiest solution to just kill the other person, and I might even have felt satisfaction over it. For some reason, I never succumbed to temptation, though, and that was the one thing that made the Jedi accept me into the Order even though I was originally considered too old. The child we are going to retrieve is still young, too young to make a conscious choice between good and evil, but if we do not retrieve him, it will come to that sooner or later."

Again, Raven felt sympathy and sadness for slaves on Nar Shaddaa. The idea that Force-sensitives were taken and corrupted at such a young age was daunting to even think about, let alone having experienced it as Eeth had. She looked over at him, her expression resolute. "I can't imagine you ever being evil, even if you do look scary in that outfit," the padawan said, her lip curling ever so slightly. She was attempting to lighten his mood, or maybe lighten her own mood? She wasn't quite sure at this point.

Eeth suspected that Raven found the things he had told her scarier than his outfit, and he was glad of it. He was quite sure he could ensure her safety, but that would only work if she was cautious, and on Nar Shaddaa, one could not be cautious enough. It would not do to underestimate the dangers of the place.

"If I had stayed," he said, "I certainly would not have gone undiscovered forever, and I would have had to make a choice between killing or being killed at some point. Now let us have lunch."

Eeth rose, opened the food cupboard and produced two containers of something that was labelled 'vegetable casserole', although the actual food looked nothing like what the cover promised.

Raven wrinkled her nose. The contents of those containers didn't look that crash hot, but she said nothing for the moment and simply watched him as he spoke.

"I am afraid this trip will offer very limited luxury, especially when compared to our last mission," Eeth remarked, noticing the look on Raven's face. "Although, pretending to be servants of the Hutt, we will at least be able to throw around some money. Unfortunately, Republican credits are not worth much on Nar Shaddaa, so we will not have an unlimited amount at our disposal."

"Yeah, I kinda gathered as much," Raven replied, gesturing to their ship. A luxury mission would not start out like this, after all. The padawan took some time to digest what he had said as Eeth set their food to heat. It was hard for her to imagine Eeth as a scared kid on Nar Shaddaa, and even harder for her to know that he felt uncomfortable coming back here. It was a mission, though, and despite feeling for him, she knew that failure was never among his mission objectives. It was with their mission in mind that Raven got to thinking more about her role and how to best make it work.

"How am I supposed to address you? And if I can't speak, should I communicate with you across our bond?" Their training bond was still very new as such things went, but Raven was able to get her point across, if not in great detail.

"Conveniently, you may address me as 'master'," Eeth said, the edges of his mouth quirking upwards ever so slightly. "I will simply call you by either a first name or a nickname of your choice. Using our bond will be the preferable way of communication unless I ask you a direct question or give you an order."

He placed one container in front of Raven and set the other down for himself. "Eat," he said. "It tastes better when hot."

Raven eyed the steaming brown pile distastefully. Force, it looked like poo. She poked at it with her fork distractedly while thinking over Eeth's words. Remembering his title would be easy, but a nickname for herself? That was not something the padawan had spent any time thinking about yet, although given they were about to undertake their first serious undercover mission together, perhaps she ought to have. Smiling, she rose a finger, holding it poised as if she were a queen about to address her royal subjects. "You may address me as 'Raven the magnificent'."

"Eat your food, Raven the magnificent," said Eeth, stony-faced. "While you work up the necessary courage, you may think of a different nickname, or I will pick one for you. How about 'Roach'?"

Scrunching her nose at the order to eat, Raven decided to give it a go. Surely it couldn't be all that bad, Force, she had eaten that green slime in the dining hall that time! Ugh! Yep, this one won. It was truly dreadful. In fact, it tasted like a concoction of freeze-dried peas, stink beetles and something crunched – was that nuts? She put her fork down and met Eeth with a grimace, happy to change the subject.

"Roach? Like, as in a cockroach?" At this point the padawan didn't know what she took more offence to, the meal he expected her to eat or the fact that he thought she should be addressed as an insect.

"A common nickname in gangs," Eeth said, unperturbed. "If you do not like it, pick something else. Now eat. Being picky about food during a mission is something I am not very tolerant of."

Raven snorted: being picky about food was not something Eeth was very tolerant of, period! She took another mouthful to placate him, but the taste had not improved. "I'm really not hungry, you can have my share, I don't mind," she told him, putting the fork back into the container of mush. Besides, there were more important things than eating, like coming up with a nickname for her, or so she hoped.

"You will need your strength during this mission," snapped Eeth, "and starship food is all we have, so it is what you will eat. Unless you would like to go over my knee first and eat then."

"Wait a moment," said Raven, frowning. "You said that you would never force me to eat something I didn't like. Well, I don't like this. You can't spank me because of that." Of course Raven knew very well that he could, and probably would do just that, but she was annoyed now and didn't care.

"What I said," Eeth corrected her, "is that I would never force you to eat something you do not want as long as you have got a choice. Right now, you do not have a choice because all we have is starship food and I am not going to throw this package of food away and heat you a different one which is not going to taste a bit better, especially if left until it is stone cold. I give you exactly two seconds to start eating. One."

He pointed at her plate, the look on his face making it clear that Raven was going to eat her food while sitting comfortably or on a well-spanked bottom, but she was going to eat it.

"I said I'd go without. I don't want anything else, I'm not even hungry." Raven crossed her arms. If she weren't already feeling defiant, the juvenile counting would have done the trick.

"Two," Eeth said ominously, the expression on his face foreboding.

"Why won't you listen to me!" Raven snapped. She wasn't going to give this up. It wasn't fair, or at least this was how she felt at the moment.

Eeth did not wear his paddle in his fancy, tight clothes but that would hardly impede him from meting out some well-deserved correction. Without dignifying her complaint with a response, he rose, pulled her up by her ear, sat down on her chair, flung her over his lap and started swatting her bottom with his large hand. And he made every swat count.

"Argh, no! Waaaait! This isn't faiiir," Raven protested to the floor. However, this didn't seem to have any effect on Eeth. She flung back a hand in an effort at protecting herself; the skirt she wore didn't exactly offer a lot in the way of coverage, after all.

Eeth grabbed her hand and pinned it to the small of her back. "I will not have any further complaints," he said, underlining that statement with a hard swat to the lower part of her bottom and drawing a yelp from his padawan. "Food in the lower levels of Nar Shaddaa is horrible, too, and I will still expect you to eat it."

Raven gave an unhappy, albeit still annoyed grunt that turned into a gasp midway. She wasn't crazy, but nor was she ready to accept defeat over this. Eeth was being unreasonable!

Eeth continued spanking her at a measured pace. "You may stop this any time," he informed Raven. "As soon as you apologise and consent to eating your food."

Okay, so this wasn't getting any easier. In fact, with each swat, the fire intensified significantly. As stubborn as she was, and Raven could honestly rival the best of them if she had a mind to, she did begin to realise the absolute futility of her situation. She squirmed through another half dozen before the discomfort began to outweigh her determination. "Okay, ooookayyy!" she whined. "I'm sorry!"

"And?" asked Eeth, not letting up on her for a bit.

This was like pulling teeth, yet what options did she have here? None – well, at least none that she wanted! Raven kicked, squirmed and then bellowed: "I'll eat ittt!"

"Good," said Eeth coolly, letting her up. "Get to it. And no more complaints, or you will have the same dish for dinner. This is not a luxury cruise."

The moment Raven was on her feet, she started hopping around and rubbing. Sure, this wasn't the worst Eeth could have given out, not by a long shot, but it had still hurt! Swiping at her eyes with a sleeve, the padawan took the food from their table and reluctantly began to eat while leaning into a cupboard. She wasn't happy with him, yet had the presence of mind, at least this time, to keep further complaints to herself.

"Now pick a name," Eeth ordered. "Shanti, Exem, or Ranna are common names in the Hutt territory, for females from all species. Alternatively, nicknames based on precious minerals and gems are very popular for girls on Nar Shaddaa. Ruby, Silver or Onyx, for example."

Still unwilling to forgive him, Raven shoved another mouthful of the disgusting mush into her mouth to avoid answering him. This was only going to work for so long, though, and she didn't want to piss him off any more. "Onyx, then," she said and pinched her nose to take another forkful; the quicker this went down, the less she would have to taste it, Raven reasoned.

"Alright," said Eeth, who was tempted to roll his eyes at her dramatics. "I will be Anath. Eat up. There is more work to be done after lunch."

Raven made a face at that. Okay, so it wasn't like she had expected this trip to be a luxury cruise or anything, but she had hoped for something other than food that tasted like plumbing gunk, and work. Resigned to the fact that this might indeed be all they had to do over the next day, Raven finished the plate of food, the final mouthful feeling like a triumph, and tossed it in the steriliser.

The moment she was done, Eeth handed her a new datapad.

"We have received a large number of files with detailed information on the sector in which the child was observed," he said. "Most of it consists of excerpts from field reports, but there are also maps, pictures and holovids. We need to learn as much as possible in order to search effectively. You will go through the information, mark everything that seems particularly important and enter it into our map of the area. You should also try to memorise as much information as possible. Any questions?"

Raven shook her head, still unwilling to forgive him and disinclined to give him more than that. She reconsidered, however, upon noticing his expression darken in a way that was all-telling. "No, master," she replied, accepting the datapad. Raven wasn't generally a sulky sort of kid, and mostly she bounced back pretty quickly, but there were some exceptions when she felt it particularly difficult to let go, this being one such time.

Eeth stepped over to her, put a finger under her chin and lifted her head, making her look at him.

"Padawan," he said quietly. "Pull yourself together and focus on our mission. There is a small child waiting to be rescued out there. We should do what we can to make that happen."

It was hard to stay mad when he did that, and even harder when what you're mad over was kinda trivial in hindsight. "I know," she replied, softening considerably. This mission was going to test her; then again, Raven was nothing if not tenacious. So it was that she lay on her bed and started on the reading.


	2. Chapter 2

The next twenty-four hours of flight time were long and boring for Raven. Thankfully, Eeth had them work out: there was a treadmill folded up behind the door next to their refresher which the padawan made use of a couple of times. The games on it were fun and worked to help keep her entertained as well as blow off some steam. Even Eeth had given it a go. Okay, okay, so Raven had coerced him into it. Still, the man could move when there were a dozen Whookiees on his tail!

By the time they exited hyperspace on the outskirts of Nal Hutta, Raven was eager to get going with their mission. If they didn't find the Force-sensitive child before the gangs did, it might be too late for him. "Only five minutes to go," she announced, reading the nav system's ETA aloud.

Eeth nodded, focussing on navigating the dense traffic and finding them a space to land. Nar Shaddaa did not have a main spaceport; that was situated on Nal Hutta. However, it held an endless number of small and large landing pads in the upper sectors. In theory, the ship was even small enough to enter the lower areas, but Eeth thought it would be more in line with their roles if they parked the ship somewhere high up, against a fee, and hired a speeder to reach their final destination. If it took them more than one afternoon to find the child, which was extremely probable, but not certain, they could return to the ship for the night and save some money. Eeth had not lied when he had said that their Republican credits would not be worth much in Hutt territory. They had more than enough to pay for food and the occasional bribes or errands, but it would not be sufficient to cover major emergencies such as a stolen or damaged starship, which was all the more reason not to leave the ship unattended for too long.

He landed the ship on a small private landing pad that offered hangar space to space travellers and was affordable, reasonably safe and reliable, at least by Nar Shaddaa standards. It had the additional benefit of being directly above the part of the slums that they needed to visit – which meant a distance of about two miles. Just like on Coruscant, the lowest levels were a dark and unpleasant place and were frequented only by those who could afford no better and those who wanted to go about their activities unseen.

He had a brief discussion in Huttese with the manager of the landing pad through the comm, upon which he navigated the ship into the assigned hangar. A droid was already bringing in the speeder they would use to continue the trip. This was a standard procedure and would not attract anyone's attention.

"Do you have everything you need?" Eeth asked Raven, checking his utility belt under the leather jacket for weapons, credits and tools.

"Yes, master, of course," she answered a little impatiently. Well, at least everything except for the blaster!

"Do not take any luggage; we will return here tonight. But you will need your weapon." Eeth produced a small blaster from his bag, handing it to her. "The green button unlocks it, and with the red button you fire," he told her. "But please refrain from doing so unless you are absolutely forced to."

Raven twirled the blaster around in one hand, thrilled but doing her very best not to show it! "Green to unlock and red to fire. Got it," she repeated, tucking the weapon into her left boot. "I'm ready when you are."

Eeth nodded. "Remember your role," he said. "You will trail behind me like a meek little slave. You will not speak without permission. If you have to address me, call me 'master' or 'Master Anath.' Avoid attracting any attention whatsoever. Now come."

"Yes, master, I know," Raven shot back, oblivious of the contradiction such a statement created. Still, when the hatch lowered, Raven fell silent, lowered her gaze and did indeed trail along behind him.

Twenty-five minutes later, Raven sat in the speeder, waiting for Eeth to open the door and let her out. Okay, so despite all the preparation, her first glimpse at the cesspool that was Nar Shaddaa proved an eye-opener. The place was dirty, seedy, and just about every person they crossed looked as if they were about to pounce on her should she happen to glance at them for too long. Well, that worked well to keep her in character, as the girl was honestly a little intimidated by what she saw. She followed closely behind her master, and not for the first time, felt a pang of sympathy for the three-year-old Eeth; Force, they weren't even in the worst of it.

Eeth paid the parking fee, which would guarantee that their speeder was not going to 'disappear,' and led Raven to an elevator that brought them even lower. It was nearly dark around here, and only a few lit windows provided a little light. Most windows were covered, however. The walkways were full of squatting people and nondescript dirt, and the smell was breathtaking. This was partly due to the fact that everything below this level was filled with garbage and sewage. What had once been the foundation of the city had literally been eaten up by dirt. The only good thing that could be said about this place was that people would generally mind their own business and nobody would look at them for long.

"That is the level I grew up on," Eeth told Raven quietly. He had to make an effort to push back the memories that threatened to resurface; he needed to focus now. While he had been on Nar Shaddaa on previous missions, he had never needed to go down here, and consequently, he had not done so for nearly forty years. The slum he had grown up in was in a different sector, but it was not much different from the streets they were walking now. The child they were looking for had been spotted on a walkway just a few blocks from here, playing in the space between two houses. He had levitated pieces of garbage and caused them to collide.

Raven nodded in acknowledgement, all the while sticking so close to Eeth that she had to make a conscious effort not to run up his heels. The slums that he had grown up in were truly awful. They had to find this kid and get him out of here. Force, the padawan wanted to take every down-trodden being they passed away from this place! They could not, though, and Raven knew that. Thus, she hardened her heart to the general sense of despair that seemed to engulf this entire place and followed Eeth towards an eatery. At least, it kinda looked like an eatery.

"We will eat before we get down to business," Eeth told Raven and added in an undertone, "I have to warn you right now, the word 'vegetarian' is unknown on this level. Many people cannot afford to eat meat, but we would be expected to. Anything else would look suspicious." With this, he pushed open the door to the dingy and crowded eatery and towed her inside.

One of the first phrases Raven had learned in Huttese was: 'cheska yo go kimbabaloomba', which, translated into Basic, meant, 'you got anything vegetarian?'. Well, it wasn't going to do her much good now. Firstly, because it would probably be noticeably out of character if she stood up and started ordering stuff, and secondly if meat was what they'd be expected to order, then they didn't have much choice. Not that Raven imagined anyone was paying attention to her. They really weren't; mostly, people minded their own business.

Eeth elbowed his way to the bar, dragging Raven behind him.

"I'm hungry," he said roughly in place of a greeting. "Ya got patoggas? We want two."

"Sure," the grubby-looking Toydarian shop owner said in the oily voice that was typical for his species. Even in the slums of Nar Shaddaa, a lot of the merchants were Toydarians, although there was no place that was lower on the Toydarian social ladder. "Two patoggas, one trugut."

Eeth snorted contemptuously, motioning at the stack of pies on the counter. "That stuff isn't worth ten wupiupis apiece," he growled. "Do you take me for a koochoo?" That last bit was said in a distinctly threatening tone of voice. The Toydarian instinctively seemed to know that Eeth was a person who made good on his threats.

"Not at all, not at all," he said quickly, trying to bring one of the shelves between himself and Eeth. "I must have misheard; thought you wanted ten. Two patoggas, a quarter trugut."

"Okay, grancha," said Eeth. He threw a quarter trugut at the shop owner, who caught it deftly, and towed Raven towards a small table. He had changed money in the upper levels and also brought a few bottles of water in his shoulder bag as it was hard to find drinks that were both clean and non-alcoholic down here. The Toydarian hurried to bring them two plates of pie with unidentifiable topping.

Raven allowed herself to be pulled along without complaint; she simply kept her head down and focussed on not falling over, or worse, running into anyone. They found a table next to a few other patrons, all of whom looked just as dirty as the rest. Shuddering when what looked like a pie was tossed in front of her, the padawan picked up her fork and started chipping away at it. Despite not actually looking at anyone in particular, Raven was still mindful of everything that was going on around them. It was that attention to detail that had her scrunch up her nose, as a quick glance at her neighbour revealed that their food was still moving. Force!

True to his role, Eeth ordered curtly and very businesslike, "Eat up. We haven't got all day." He tossed her a bottle of water while he rapped out the order. Then he tore off about a third of his pie and devoured it in one go. People on Nar Shaddaa were not big on table manners.

The water was caught deftly and placed aside so Raven could focus on eating without throwing up. Although when she noticed how Eeth was eating, she dropped the fork and started in with her hands also. Force, whatever was in this tasted almost as bad as the ship food… Almost. Raven nodded at the order to hurry up, but did not offer more than that; she had a mouthful of pie crust, after all.

Raven had eaten the entire pie, leaving only the mushy topping before she looked up at Eeth, gesturing to her plate. "You want?" she asked across their bond and cracked the seal on her bottle of water.

Eeth frowned at her. "The next time, you eat all of it," he sent back. Out loud, he said, "Are you done? We need to get going." He waited until she had drunk some water and then he pocketed their bottles and they left.

"We will check out the street where the boy was sighted," Eeth told Raven in a low voice. "If that fails, we will try to get information out of a Toydarian. Toydarians are on nobody's side. With everybody else, you can never be sure whom they will rat you out to, but Toydarians can be counted on to be in it only for the money. The important thing is to give them the impression that they won't find a better buyer easily, at least not without facing repercussions. They would never mess with the Hutt. Nobody does around here."

While he talked, he led her around a few corners to a street that mostly held dilapidated apartment blocks. A lot of the people living here were dressed in rags and obviously among the poorest of the poor. A few of the windows sported a neon-blue circle, indicating that a prostitute was waiting for customers.

"This is practically a mirror image of the place I grew up in," Eeth told Raven quietly. "The child was seen playing in the dumps somewhere around here."

They had both memorised the identikit picture of the child, provided by the field agent who had supervised him. Eeth was confident that he would be able to sense him through the Force if they came close enough. However, right now, there was not a trace of a Force-sensitive person to be sensed unless that person was heavily shielded, and a child this young would not be able to do that.

"Do you sense anything?" Eeth asked Raven, just to be sure.

"No, master, nothing but rats," Raven replied, not that she expected to sense anything when Eeth himself had not.

A tall, slender humanoid woman with dark skin called out to Eeth from across the street, offering him the 'experience of a lifetime' for half price. Raven concealed her mirth. After all, the notion was preposterous on so many levels she did not know where to begin. Not that the woman had any way of knowing her prospective client was a celibate homosexual member of the Jedi High Council.

A couple of hours and several frustratingly uninformative conversations later, they entered a small dingy side alley where two Toydarians could be seen buzzing around, apparently arguing over who was responsible for an incident involving the loss of quite a large sum of money. Raven could understand their sentences a little better than some of the other species she had eavesdropped on as they were speaking in the loud, clipped Huttese, that was typical of Toydarians.

Although Raven still followed behind Eeth, she had slowed down to see what the Toydarians were doing. She sensed something through the Force that wasn't right. It felt like a cluster of small life Forces were frantically fearful, and then a flash of tremendous pain, before more terror followed. Curious, she went on tiptoes to peer over the stall as they passed by, only to find another Toydarian, this one just a boy. The padawan sucked in a breath when she saw him roughly pulling small bird-like creatures from an old box, cut off their middle toe, then tossing them, none-to-gently, into a wooden crate with holes in it.

"Chuba!" she said in a shocked tone, hoping her sudden outburst would cause the boy to jump and perhaps a few of the birds might escape to freedom in the process.

The boy was too focussed on his task to let any of the birds escape; he just gave Raven a glare and spat on the sidewalk. The two adults, however, interrupted their conversation and gave the pair of Jedi a closer look, their hands moving towards the blasters at their hips. Eeth saw that he had to intervene quickly.

"Shut it," he barked, giving Raven a cuff up the back of her head which drew a gasp from his padawan. "These gentlemen are doing business, can't you see that?" Raven started to apologise, but he grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and pulled her none too gently around the corner and into a small and momentarily deserted alleyway. "Sorry for that," he murmured, "but you left me no other choice there. Whatever did you want to accomplish? If you wanted to start a fight, you were going about it the right way. We do not need that kind of attention."

Okay, so the last thing Raven expected to hear from Eeth once they were out of earshot was an apology. She looked up at him, rubbing at the back of her head. "I'm sorry, master. I'll do better," she promised, hoping he wouldn't think she was too inexperienced for this mission and drag her back to their ship.

"You need not be sorry," Eeth said after a pause. "I should have talked to you about this before hauling you off on a mission like this. Alright, it is getting late, and it has been a very long day due to the time change. Let us go back to the ship. We will take the time to talk about this situation before heading back down to the slums."

He could have kicked himself for not having thought of the likelihood that a girl who had used a field trip for an attempt to free caged chickens would have trouble suppressing her compassion for other beings in surroundings as cruel as these. Unfortunately - and that was one thing he detested about the place - there was no way one could get anything accomplished on Nar Shaddaa without suppressing such feelings of compassion almost constantly. They really would need to talk about this.

"Yes, master," Raven replied, the comment easily passing as acceptable for her role, even though nobody was around to overhear. Still, and despite his explanation, the padawan couldn't help but feel they were leaving because of her. Wanting to make it up to him, Raven stuck on his heels and kept her head down until they reached their ship.

Slumping onto her bunk with a sigh, the padawan pulled the blaster from her boot, tossed it under her mattress and started pulling them off. These boots were a far cry from the Temple-issued footwear she was accustomed to. They weren't uncomfortable, per se, just unfamiliar.

Eeth washed his hands very thoroughly and set out dinner. He had stopped at a store on the upper levels and bought bread, cheese and fruit. Fresh food was expensive on a moon that had no agriculture and next to impossible to come by in the slums.

"Wash your hands and come eat," he said gently. "After that, we will meditate, and then we will go to bed. We will talk tomorrow."

"How come we have to wait until tomorrow to talk? What are you planning on telling me?" Raven asked a little warily while moving to the sink. The amount of dirt that came off her hands was impressive and terrifying at the same time!

"We are both tired," said Eeth. "On Coruscant, it is two in the morning now. I want us to be well-rested for this talk because it is important. We need to discuss how to deal with the suffering of other beings we encounter on our missions. It is an issue that's very hard to deal with, on many levels. I do not blame you for having spontaneously reacted the way you did. I am at fault for not having addressed it before we arrived here. But I really think you should get some sleep before we address such difficult matters."

Raven resisted the urge to argue that she wasn't tired, if only because, well, she _was_ freakin' tired. She sat at the table, eternally grateful to Eeth for having procured them something edible.

Raven didn't say much as they ate that night, although during their evening meditation it did become clear that she harboured guilt, not to mention insecurities over the fact that she was responsible for the first mistake in their mission. So far, everything had gone swimmingly, uh, if you didn't include the minor disagreement over spaceship food. Raven opened one eye, a sheepish expression on her face at having bombarded him with all her emotional baggage. Eeth had said many times that this was in his job description as her master and guide, yet the padawan still felt a pang of shame at baring her feelings so openly.

Eeth gave her a brief smile and rested a hand on her shoulder.

"It really is alright," he said quietly. "Will you need help falling asleep?"

Raven did, and as a result, she slept as peacefully as if she were at the Temple.

That was until… "Oh no, you can't be serious," she complained upon being woken the following morning. But before Eeth could utter his usual reprimand, she held up a hand from beneath her covers, which was the only part of her visible at this point. "Wait, don't answer that; it was a rhetorical question." With that said, the padawan rolled herself out of bed, landing on the floor. The dramatics were no doubt earning some form of disapproval from Eeth, but Raven did not look up to see his expression; which was all for the better because Eeth had to make an effort to keep his mouth from twitching.

Half an hour later, Raven was showered and dressed in a similar style outfit as yesterday. "Want help braiding your hair?" she asked when Eeth looked up at her.

Eeth smiled at her. "Thank you, I am nearly done," he replied. He threw back his braids and beckoned for Raven to sit down and have some of the bread, cheese and fruit he had bought yesterday.

"This is the deluxe version of a Nar Shaddaa mission," he said quietly. "Meaning that we do not have to stay down in the city. I have to admit the place still gets to me after all these years."

"If we had to stay down there, I wouldn't complain about our post-mission check-up," Raven commented, taking some bread. "It still makes you sad to remember," she added, feeling bad for him.

Eeth pondered this. "Not sad, exactly," he said. "I just detest it. I do not know if you remember Lakhri talking about his long-term mission. He said that after some time among the warring factions, he had to fight the feeling that it would be best to bomb the whole place and relieve the universe from all that scum. That is the kind of feeling I tend to have while on Nar Shaddaa. I know it is uncalled for, and I try to not indulge in it, but it does require an effort."

"I can understand Lakhri's exasperation better now," Raven admitted. Sure, at the time she had understood his words and the concept but didn't really know what it meant in reality, not really. "I will try not to make it harder on you, I promise." When Eeth just nodded at this, they ate for a while. Neither Jedi spoke, yet this wasn't at all an uncomfortable silence.

When Raven had eaten all she was going to, she pushed her plate aside and rested her chin in a palm, her fingers tapping impatiently on the table. "Are we going back to the area where the kid was spotted?" Raven thought they might, but wasn't sure if Eeth had other things for them to do first.

"Yes," said Eeth. "We will continue asking for information. But first, we need to have a talk about what happened yesterday. I am not sure that you know what the whole incident was about, so I will explain. We came across a Toydarian who mutilated cachangoos. He probably did it for a profit; cachangoos are considered a delicacy by the Hutt, and those with two toes are said to be richer in taste. Whether this is true or not, he might have wanted to sell his cachangoos to the Hutt at a higher price than he bought them for, although in my experience, it is inadvisable to try and cheat a Hutt. Whatever his motives were, it was obviously a case of cruelty towards animals, which was what made you intervene, I assume?"

"Yes. I hoped the boy might get a fright or something and maybe some might be dropped and escape in the process. I could feel their pain through the Force. They were so scared. I really wanted to save them." Raven's face scrunched at the memory, and she pulled her knees into her chest, wrapping her arms around them.

"They have no way of surviving in the slums of Nar Shaddaa," said Eeth matter-of-factly. "No food, no clean water, and an overabundance of beings that would eat them."

Raven gave him a piteous look at hearing that, yet could tell that he wasn't done speaking and so remained silent.

"That aside," Eeth continued, "I completely understand that your compassion for other creatures would have compelled you to try and help. But what you have to understand, padawan, is that the objective of our mission has to have top priority, always, and that you will have to think long and carefully before intervening on behalf of any creature unrelated to our mission lest your intervention jeopardise our success. This is a hard lesson to learn, and a cruel one as well. The galaxy is full of injustice and suffering, and Nar Shaddaa is a place where you find much of both. The Jedi cannot hope to abolish all this injustice and suffering in a million lifetimes. The most we can do is to support the Republic with its system of justice, equity and democracy, as corrupt and imperfect it might seem, for what you are witnessing on Nar Shaddaa is the alternative. That, and we try to raise as many of those who are strong in the Force as we can in order to prevent them from falling to the Dark Side, since we never want to see the Sith, or a similar evil, rise back to power again. Consequently, we travel the galaxy with missions to fulfil, and we will stumble upon countless incidents of suffering that we cannot do anything about. And this is what you will have to accept, as hard as you might find it. Do you understand what I am saying, padawan?"

"Well, yeah, kinda," she huffed because that was a lot to take in. "The thing is that I know all of this in theory but it's actually not so easy to do in practice. How do you turn off feeling compassion?" she wanted to know because she wasn't able to at this point.

"You need not turn it off," Eeth replied. "You should not, even. But you need to learn to be in control of your emotions and not to act on them blindly. Sometimes, you will need to accept that things are as they are and that we cannot change them. Quite a few people have been led to the Dark Side by the best of intentions; by a strong will to make the world a better place and to use the full extent of their powers in order to force others to give up their evil ways."

Raven started to butt in here, wanting to argue that maybe the Jedi knew better. That they should be able to change things. But Eeth held up a hand to silence her.

"I am not saying that any small act of compassion will lead you to the Dark Side," he said. "On some occasions, helping others in small or big ways, even when unrelated to the success of our mission, will be possible without causing problems, and on those occasions, you are more than welcome to act on your compassion. For the moment, however, I would like you to follow my lead. I do not think that you have sufficient experience to be any judge of what is risky and what is not. On Nar Shaddaa, in particular, nearly everything entails risks, which is why we need to be doubly cautious."

"I will," Raven replied, for she was not yet at a stage where she could clearly distinguish between her own feelings and the Will of the Force. Besides, she could hardly stop and meditate on each decision before acting on it; that would slow them down considerably. She trusted Eeth to know what he was doing, after all.

"Alright," said Eeth, giving her a small smile. "Then let us go."

An hour or so later they arrived where they had left off yesterday and began looking for clues that might lead them to the boy.

"This place gives me the creeps," Raven sent through their bond. She suppressed a shudder at the smell while sticking to her master like a second shadow.

"Achuta pateessa. You wanna buy some death sticks?" came a voice from the side street. Raven glanced sideways at the tall figure, but kept her head down and continued to follow Eeth. "Hey! Best price in Nar Shaddaa," the man added when they kept walking. He stepped in front of them, blocking Eeth's path, and opened his coat, revealing a line of neatly placed bottles and death sticks tucked into individual pockets.

Eeth gave him an icy look of the kind that would have made the average initiate at the Temple numb with fear. "We got jobs to do," he said silkily. "Don't waste our time, scum."

The man flapped his coat shut and left so fast he practically left a vapor trail.

"Most of the people who 'have jobs to do' around here are hired killers," Eeth murmured to Raven. "They never take drugs, and many of them do not mind whom they kill. That is why he left in such a hurry."

Raven nodded at Eeth's words. After all, she knew the look well, and barely suppressed a smirk at seeing the man slinking back into the alley. "Aww, harsh," she replied quietly, while making sure to keep close and play her part.

"No more than he deserved," Eeth said coolly. "In fact, much less than he deserved." He had no sympathy for drug dealers.

Having reached the place where the child had been spotted by the undercover operative, they looked around for a shop they had not yet explored and found one just down the street that had been closed last night but was open now. It was a small shop, much like the one Eeth had frequented as a child, selling everything from sandwiches to power cells, and like most of the shops around here, it was owned by a Toydarian.

Eeth entered the shop with Raven in tow and waited until the previous customer had left. Then he approached the shop owner and said quietly, "I'm coming from up there" – he indicated the direction with a nod of his head – "and I'm looking for information. I'm willing to pay for it."

"And who says I have information?" the shop owner asked greasily.

"The ones I work for," hissed Eeth, "think you do. And they do not take kindly to anyone who withholds it from them."

That obviously got the shop owner thinking. Finally, he asked hesitantly, "It wouldn't be about a child?"

Eeth raised his eyebrows and gave a curt nod.

"Well, I can't tell you anything," the shop owner said extremely decisively. "Been paid not to tell anything, after all. What's more, if I tell, I'm gonna be dead before nightfall and that's not worth it."

"And what if I told you you are gonna be dead by nightfall if you refuse to talk to me?" Eeth asked silkily.

The Toydarian gulped, and gulped again. "In that case," he finally said, "it would be a question of who pays more."

The bargaining went on for about a quarter of an hour until Eeth had to concede that two peggats were the best deal he was going to get. He was reluctant to spend that much money, as this would severely diminish his reserves, but if it was true that others were already after the child, things were rather urgent. He gave the Toydarian a turgut and said, "You will receive the rest when we've heard all the information. And it had better be good and accurate information, or I will know where to find you."

He had, of course, no intention to kill anyone, but the merchant did not need to know that.

The merchant turned around and called: "Charry! Hey, Charry!"

A Zabrak girl that was little older than Raven emerged from a back room, holding a cleaning rag in her hand, and asked, "Yes, master?"

"Go get Old Saddly," the Toydarian commanded. "Now. But don't be obvious about it."

The girl nodded and took off at once.

Raven watched Charry leave, grateful, not for the first time, that she had been born on a planet within the Republic. What might have happened to her had she been born here like Eeth? Would she have been found and taken to the Temple? Killed perhaps? Or worse, turned to the Dark Side by gangs and forced into a life of pain and suffering? It didn't bear thought, and Raven shook it off before her expression gave anything away.

A little while later, an old human woman appeared on the doorstep, which in itself was fairly astonishing since people rarely got old in the slums.

The Toydarian started another bargaining session with the woman, speaking in fast Huttese, and it took them another quarter hour to reach an agreement, upon which she wordlessly beckoned Eeth and Raven into the back room.

"You wanna know about the boy that can lift things by looking at them, right?" she asked brusquely.

"Exactly," said Eeth evenly.

She took a long look at him, which he held. Finally, she shrugged and said, "Right. You're not the only one who's after him. Been sold three days ago, just before the local gang leaders could get their hands on him. Since then, the Shaddaa Syndicate and Nash the Hutt have sent people to ask about him, and now you come along. You'll have a hard time getting there first."

"We'll see about that," Eeth replied calmly. "Who sold him, and to whom?"

The woman shrugged. "His mother, of course. To some rich nob from above. Addicted to gambling, ya know? Wants the kid to help him with the dice."

"So his mother sold him," Eeth repeated. "Is she still around?"

"Nope," said the woman. "I knew her well; in fact, I helped her give birth to the child. I work as a midwife around here, see. Mansha was a prostitute, and a successful one; never drank or smoked death sticks, didn't want to lose her good looks. When she figured out she was pregnant, she was furious. Merchant had sold her fake contraceptive pills. But then she said, oh well, instead of wasting money on an abortion, I'll just sell the child into slavery. Well, when the boy was actually born, she couldn't. Took a look at him and was silent for a while and then said, 'He'll bring more money when he's older anyway. I'll keep him for a while.' And so she did. Named him Lyan. He spent a lot of time with me when his mum was working. A bright child, and almost always content. Everyone liked him. And then, only a short while ago, he started to do all these things. Lift stuff just by looking at it. Light fires without a lighter. And Mansha was terrified 'cause she knew that it wouldn't take two weeks until the gang lords would hear about it and steal him. So one day, she took him to the upper levels and came back without the child. Started packing her stuff, crying all the time. She sold him to a rich man, a gambler, she told me, and he seemed a good man and wouldn't exploit her son too much, or at least not make him do hard work, and he paid a huge amount of money, more than the gang lords would ever have, if they'd paid at all. And then she left, I don't know where. She didn't say."

Eeth could clearly sense that the woman was truthful. That was one huge advantage of having a human tell him this, instead of a Toydarian who would have been been immune to any attempt to use the Force on him.

"And you have no idea where she sold him, or to whom exactly?" he asked. The woman shook her head. "She'd have been stupid to tell," she said. "But it can't have been all that far away from this sector. She went up and came down again within two hours. And because I like you two a lot more than the others who've been here to ask about the boy, I'll tell you that I'd start looking in the Tabbet Casino." With this, she got up abruptly and made to leave.

"Thank you," said Eeth, quite certain that he would not find out more for now. Turning towards the doorway, he brushed against the woman and slipped a coin into her pocket, for the Toydarian had claimed the larger part of the two peggats for himself.

Five minutes later, they were out on the street again, considerably poorer than before.

"Well, it looks as if we need to go gambling," Eeth said calmly, making his way towards the nearest elevator.


	3. Chapter 3

The elevator doors shut behind Eeth and Raven. In a few minutes, they would be several dozen levels up, very close to the Tabbet casino, which was one of the largest such establishments on Nar Shaddaa. Eeth just hoped that they would find the Force-sensitive child there before any of the others who were after him did!

Given that they were in a closed elevator cabin, and very much alone, Raven deemed it safe enough to speak openly. Besides, the ride was going to take a while. She only hoped that their Toydarian lead was correct and not sending them on some wild goose chase. Oh, well, there was only one way to find out.

"According to the file information, this is the Casino prefered by the Hutt," the padawan said. shuddering. "I hate the Hutt, did I ever mention that? Vile creatures."

"As a rule, they are," Eeth replied quietly. "And what makes things worse is that they are not Force-sensitive. Trying to influence a Hutt is like trying to break a duracrete wall with your head. They are also extremely hard to kill; that is, if you even get near enough to try."

"Oh, that would make them all the more fun to deal with," Raven replied in a deadpan tone. At that moment, the elevator stopped and they were joined by three others, which ended their conversation for now.

The Tabbet casino was a huge, rather fancy-looking building compared to those around it. Raven had never been into a casino before, and the coloured lights, glittering decorations and half-naked wait staff proved far too interesting to ignore. The sound of someone cursing up a storm and being dragged out by security drew her attention, and when she looked back, Eeth was not there.

"Force! This isn't good," she thought, dragging a hand down her face. Reaching out through the Force, Raven tried to pick him out in the crowds in the hopes of locating him, but it wasn't easy. The casino was quite literally filled to capacity, which meant that there was a lot of interference. Raven closed her eyes and focussed harder.

Eeth was busy buying the minimum number of game chips that was compulsory for admittance when he sensed an unfamiliar Force presence somewhere close-by. He headed for it purposefully and was just about to reach its source, right behind a huge game table, when he realised that his padawan was missing. Feeling tempted to curse under his breath, he turned and went to look for her.

"If you cannot manage to stay at my side, maybe it would be better if you waited in the speeder," he murmured into her ear from behind when he had found her back in the entrance hall. "We have more urgent things to do than play hide-and-seek."

Okay, so Raven had expected that, although she still cringed a bit. "Sorry, master. I'll pay attention, I promise," she said, really not wanting to be exiled to their speeder.

Under different circumstances, Eeth might well have swatted her, but he had a sense of urgency that he had long ago learned to follow. The child was infinitely more important than his apprentice's minor distractedness.

"Come," he said curtly, turned on his heels and strode off, back into the main hall.

He was just approaching the table where he had sensed the Force presence when suddenly all hell broke loose. There was blaster fire, a lot of people started to scream at once and everyone was trying to run or hide. Eeth pushed Raven behind himself quickly, but there was no need; the whole incident was over even faster than it had begun. The crowd parted – with Eeth, who was still hiding Raven behind himself, melting into it so quietly and efficiently that he was hardly noticeable – and an immensely fat Hutt emerged, surrounded by guards, servants and slaves. One of the servants carried an unconscious small child in his arms. The guards held blasters which they pointed at the crowd in a threatening manner. In the gap that they left, a middle-aged, expensively dressed human man could clearly be seen lying on the ground, and it was equally clear that he was dead. Nobody with that many holes in his body could still be alive.

There was deadly silence in the hall when the group left. It was obvious that nobody dared interfere. Droids were already moving to dispose of the corpse. Slowly, murmurs started to rise around them. Eeth could hear one name mentioned again and again: "Nash the Hutt".

"Sith," he hissed. It was possibly the first time ever that he had let Raven hear him swear, and indeed she looked up at him despite all the commotion. He grabbed her upper arm and propelled her through the crowds. The Hutt and his entourage were already on their way to the deluxe parking where an immense gilded speeder the size of a small starship was waiting for them.

"Can you hide your Force presence well enough to follow them into the speeder?" Eeth whispered urgently. "Tell me honestly, fast."

They could benefit from the fact that the Hutt and his entourage did not know they were being followed; but the stress of the situation would make it quite hard for his padawan to conceal her presence, and Eeth would prefer not to be discovered in an attempt to board a Hutt's cruiser uninvited.

Could she? Force, probably not on her own, considering the amount of adrenaline coursing through her system right now. Thus, she answered him honestly. "No, master, but I am calm enough to focus, and if you help me, I could manage long enough to board and hide inside."

Eeth had to make a decision within seconds. Had he been alone, he would not have hesitated; boarding the Hutt's ship now would be infinitely easier than trying to infiltrate his home later. Having Raven at his side, however, created a dilemma. There was a definite risk of discovery while they boarded. What was more, they had no way of knowing whether there would be a hiding place aboard the ship. Well, if the worst came to the worst, they could always fight, he thought. It would be dangerous, but probably less dangerous than getting inside the home of a Hutt; these were usually next to impenetrable fortresses.

"Come on, then," he hissed, throwing up his shields and blending in with his surroundings. He tried to strengthen Raven's disguise as well. When he was reasonably sure that they would not be seen by anyone who did not know they were there, he pulled Raven forward, after the Hutt and his entourage who were, thankfully, extremely slow. They followed the company to their speeder as quietly as possible. The guards at the back kept turning and walking backwards; so far, however, they did not seem to notice the two Jedi. Eeth still kept his hand at his saber, just in case.

Raven had to close her eyes, as each time a guard turned to double back, she would struggle not to lose focus. Thankfully, with Eeth's help they managed to board the ship undetected. The moment they set foot inside the ship, Raven slid herself into a small gap behind a cooler and immediately entered a light meditative trance. She would have to if she wanted to pull this off.

Eeth was relieved that Raven had found a space to hide; there were not many of them in the main cabin. If he hadn't been certain that none of the servants and guards who accompanied Nash were Force-sensitive, he would never have dared to do this. For lack of a better option, he simply crouched beside the ramp, assuming that this place would be safe until the company prepared to leave. For the duration of the trip, he focussed on maintaining his own disguise and diverting attention from the place where Raven was hiding. The child still seemed to be completely unconscious during the entire ride. He had probably been taken out by a hypospray anaesthetic.

Nash the Hutt's residence was located in the highest layers of Nar Shaddaa and halfway around the moon, which gave him some time to think; and indeed, his mind was working furiously. If they entered Nash's residence, they would face numerous dangers, not the least of which might be constituted by Force-sensitive servants or slaves who would notice Raven's presence, if not his. Even if that did not happen – and Eeth currently had no way of finding out whether such Force-sensitive servants existed – getting out of a Hutt household with a kidnapped toddler who they could not risk getting hurt would prove a major challenge. It was with this in mind that Eeth decided to take his first chance to kidnap not only the child, but also the shuttle before the residence's hangar doors closed behind them. It might not come to this; much depended on the Hutt leaving the ship before they were closed in, since Hutt, especially the old and massive ones, were generally extremely hard to incapacitate. He would be on his most alert, trying to take the best opportunity that presented itself, and he tried to convey as much to Raven through their bond.

About twenty minutes into their trip, Raven's feet were developing pins and needles from her awkwardly cramped position, but she resisted the urge to stretch lest the smallest creak escape and blow their cover. Thankfully, just when she thought this torture could go on no longer, Nash the Hutt ordered their posse to stop at a market to purchase some two-toed Cachangoos, as apparently, he was hungry and wanted a snack for the rest of their journey home. Raven had never been so thankful for the greed and gluttony of a Hutt and could not believe their luck when he ordered all but four of his crew to personally carry his cargo back: Nash did not trust anyone else near his food, at least this was the explanation Raven overheard. She did not dare to risk so much as a glance to see where Eeth was. Instead, she focused on remaining concealed and waited for an opening or instructions. Besides, she could still sense the child aboard.

Eeth knew that this was their best chance. However, he did not dare seize the shuttle with Nash onboard. If he did, half of the bounty hunters of Nar Shaddaa would be behind them in a heartbeat. Therefore, he needed to get Nash outside. Thinking fast and furiously, he crept towards the door and pressed the "open" button. This immediately alerted the guards, two of whom were running up to check; but Eeth had already slipped outside and positioned himself in front of the ship.

"Hey, Nash!" he shouted as loud as he could in Huttese. "My boss still owes you money! Want to have it back?"

It was the best that he could think of. The prospect of getting money back should make every Hutt emerge from his hole, And he was right; Nash was no exception. Of course, he would not trust his guards to get their hands on his money. Instead, he came waddling to the door himself.

"Who are you, and who are you working for?" he growled.

"I'm not going to yell that across the street," Eeth replied. He raised his money bag and jingled it. "I've been sent to give you your money back, but my client does not want too much publicity."

"Why are you doing it here, then?" Nash snapped. "Come to my house."

"I am not going to enter your house any more than I am going to enter your shuttle," Eeth replied coolly. "Do you think I want to end up as fodder for one of your pets?"

A chuckle that signalled begrudging respect escaped Nash. Accompanied by two guards, he slowly stepped out of the door. Eeth let them approach for a few steps. Then his saber flashed up and both of the guards started howling nearly simultaneously, one of them clutching his leg and the other one his arm. Amid the general confusion, Eeth jumped back into the ship and palmed the door button shut in less than a second, dodging a thrown knife and a few blaster shots in the process. The two guards who had remained aboard the shuttle came up to him, firing at him with their blasters; he neatly deflected the shots back into their chests. He did not like to kill, but getting the child from Nash without having to kill anyone would have been virtually impossible. Without a second look or even taking the time to deactivate his saber, he made it to the navigation console and took off at full speed.

"Padawan, take care of the child," he instructed sharply while entering a crowded lane and weaving through the traffic with their huge cruiser. While he did so, he finally deactivated his saber, reattached it to his belt and sank down into the pilot's seat, completely focussed on getting away as fast as possible. They needed to reach their ship before Nash had any time to find out where a Zabrak Jedi in disguise might have landed it, or they would be in deep trouble indeed.

Knowing there was little she could do, Raven had remained hidden until it was clear Eeth had taken control of their ship and they were making an escape. Only then did she spring from her hiding spot and dashed for the child. "I have him," she confirmed while strapping herself, sleeping child in arms, into the nearest seat; this was probably going to be a rough ride.

As anticipated, Nash did not disappoint them, and their ship was soon dodging in and out of traffic lanes to avoid pursuers at a pace that would have been impossible for any non-Force-sensitive pilot. Realising they had picked up company, Raven glanced around the shuttle. "Master, there are two manual turrets at the rear, do you want me to try losing them?"

"For the moment, no, thank you, padawan," Eeth replied, going into a breathtaking dive into the lower levels. "The traffic is too dense – brace yourself! – and you'd be bound to hit other vehicles." He went into a swerve around a tight curve and wove through the traffic into an even lower level, the daylight dimming as they went down.

"We will have to abandon this cruiser," he said. "Half Nar Shaddaa seems to be on the lookout for it. It is too easy to recognise. Take a look at the rear screen. Do you think we have lost them for the moment?"

"Define 'lost them'" Raven stated wryly, as she glanced at the screen to see that two of their pursuers had crashed into an advertisement for something called Strider's club, and the remaining one was struggling to stay with them. "Keep this up, and the one on your tail will either fall too far behind or crash trying to catch us," she elaborated and glanced down at the still peaceful child, thinking that she wanted some of whatever it was they had given him!

True to her word, a couple of minutes later the ensuing speeder had dropped so far behind that Raven could no longer see it, and she conveyed this information to Eeth. "Perhaps we could ditch the ship at Strider's club? It's coming up on the left," the padawan suggested.

Eeth gave a curt nod. "Right. It is not ideal, since we will be noticed by many people, but it will have to do. We will have new pursuers after us within minutes."

He navigated the speeder into the parking lot and came to a skidding halt. Jumping up, he flung open the cupboard and closet doors and tossed everything that might be of use onto a blanket, whether it was food or clothing. He tied the blanket with a knot, shed his strikingly blue jacket and threw the blanket bundle towards Raven who slung it over her shoulder. Then he picked up the still sleeping child, palmed the release button on the door and gripped his saber in case they were expected.

Their pursuer had not managed to catch up with them yet, however, so he beckoned Raven to follow him and hurried out into the parking lot. Avoiding the main aisle, weaving in and out between the parked speeders, he looked for a suitable vehicle. He chose an old and battered standard model with shaded windows that would not attract attention and would be hard to identify in the traffic.

"Keep a lookout for me, padawan," he ordered, carefully passing the sleeping child to her, and set about short-circuiting the lock.

Raven accepted the kid, pulling him into her chest and making rocking motions in order to keep him sleeping. The last thing they wanted right now was for him to wake up and start screaming.

Five minutes later, they were back out on the streets, Raven in the back seat with the child on her lap and Eeth navigating.

He took them to the vicinity of their starship's landing pad without further incident. However, he decided to be cautious, parking the speeder in a garage several blocks away. After all, it was possible that Nash had alerted all stations to look out for a spaceship that might belong to a Zabrak Jedi; his lightsaber would have given his identity away quite glaringly.

"Padawan, stay in the speeder with the child," he told Raven. "I will check on our starship. If the coast is clear, I will comm you; else, I will return and we will look for other options."

"Yes, master," Raven replied, but as fate would have it, the child chose that moment to begin stirring in her arms. She looked up at Eeth when her bouncing and cooing seemed to settle him down. "We're good."

Eeth hesitated but decided that he would just have to trust her to handle the boy. Just as he turned to leave, however, Lyan stirred again and grunted a little, grimacing. A moment later, the kid woke up fully and started wailing at the top of his lungs. Maybe it was from the aftereffects of the anaesthetic or due to the unfamiliar surroundings; either way, he was clearly unhappy.

Eeth sighed. This was the worst possible time for Lyan to wake up. Even if the ship was not guarded, an inconspicuous entry would not be possible with a screaming toddler. In any case, Raven would have to cope for a moment because Eeth had no time to lose. If the ship had not yet been discovered, they needed to make a getaway as fast as possible.

Unfortunately, Eeth noticed immediately as he crept up to the hangar that several heavily armed and equally heavily armoured guards were hanging around the ship. It would not have been possible for anyone to enter without being noticed by them – unless, of course, that someone possessed the ability to cloak his presence through the Force. However, while Eeth possessed a distinct advantage here, it would not help him lower the ramp unnoticed, nor would it enable him to bring in his apprentice plus a distraught child without attracting attention. They would have to find another way. Realistically, it would be much easier to hide somewhere in the lower levels of Nar Shaddaa, lie low and take care of the child than to enforce a hasty exit. They were not equipped to deal with space pursuits, let alone battling an armada of Hutt starships.

He returned to the garage quickly, finding Raven struggling with a wailing toddler. On top of this, the boy smelled truly awful now. Well, there was no time to deal with this right now.

"The ship is being watched," he informed her. "They cannot know for sure that it is ours, but they are clearly suspicious. We will have to hide somewhere for now and get the child to calm down. I assume we will need some diapers in order to do so."

He revved up the engine and pulled out onto the street. In view of the fact that the child was wailing, he stopped by the nearest supermarket and bought a large crate of diapering equipment and baby food. While he tended to feel uncomfortable around small children, he knew quite well how to look after them. His master had made him help out in the creche occasionally when he had been at a particularly arrogant stage of his adolescence, and it had worked well to take him down a peg or two. He had also taken part in missions meant to retrieve Force-sensitive children before, although he had never been the only adult on the mission team. Only now did he realise that the responsibility of dealing with the child ultimately rested with him, especially if they were to stay on Nar Shaddaa for several more days. But as there was no other option, he could not very well refuse to follow the call of duty.

He navigated the speeder through the lower levels and finally parked it in a derelict parking lot in a semi-respectable area that had seen better days but did hold some cheap, but sufficiently safe hostels and apartment houses.

"Well, we had better get the child changed into clean diapers and quieted down before we check in anywhere," he said. With a slight smirk, he added: "Would you like to do the honours?"

"Uh, no, you can have that honour," Raven answered him quickly, shifting to lay Lyan out on the back seat, which was no easy feat. She had done her best to keep the boy calm during the trip, but apparently, the techniques she used so successfully with animals didn't work nearly as well with Force-sensitive children. Well, she couldn't really blame the kid for being upset, Force, she was upset! The smell was something else, and if his crying was not enough to deal with, his repeated: "Poo-poo" was adding to both their distress.

Eeth frowned.

"Padawan, I will do it for now," he said in a low, stern voice, "but you will stay right at my side and help so you can do it yourself the next time. Taking care of small children is not my favourite pastime either, but this child has just lost everything and is dependent on us, so we will do our duty. Is that clear?"

"Not on your life," thought Raven upon hearing that she would be changing the next one. Out loud, however, she merely said, "Yes, master."

Eeth lifted the child up quite gently to place a waterproof mat below him and sent him a tendril of soothing energy through the Force. In his limited experience, that always helped calm down Force-sensitive children, and to his relief, it actually worked. The child quieted down immediately. He was still whimpering and pointing to his backside, though.

"Poo-pooooo," he whined, looking at Eeth with tearful eyes.

"Yes, poo-poo," Eeth affirmed brusquely. "I will wipe it off, and my padawan" – he grabbed Raven by the sleeve and pulled her a lot closer – "will watch and help. Hand me a packet of wipes, padawan."

"Oh! oh no way..." Raven groaned, grabbing a fistful of the wipes and practically tossing them at him. If it were at all possible, the kid only smelled worse when he was moved around, and she really didn't want to know how bad it was going to get when Eeth took off that diaper.

Eeth pulled down the child's pants carefully and undid his diaper. It was not only messy, but also very soggy; apparently, his now-dead owner had not considered regular diaper changes a high priority.

The child was now calm and positively docile, watching Eeth with bright, curious eyes. They were large, hazel eyes that matched his brown curls: he was a pretty boy.

"Here we go, Lyan," Eeth said a little stiffly, wiping off the sticky mess with a lot of wipes handed to him by his padawan. He stuffed the dirty wipes into the messy diaper and rolled it up into a bundle, then put a clean diaper on the boy and sat him up again.

"We are going to give you a bath later," he promised, noticing the child's grimy hands and neck. Caring for the boy's health or cleanliness had apparently been not very high on his owner's agenda either.

The boy's eyes lit up immediately. "Lyan like bath," he said shyly.

"Err, that is good," said Eeth, patting him on the head. "Good boy. Padawan, if you stay with the boy, then I could…"

However, before he had finished the sentence, two small hands had wrapped around his neck and Lyan was climbing onto his lap.

"Wow, he really likes you!" Raven said, and then quickly back-peddled at hearing the obvious surprise in her tone. "Uh, not that there is any reason he wouldn't," she hastened to add, her gaze flitting sideways for a moment.

"Errr," said Eeth in a manner that was not at all characteristic of him, and if he had been prone to blushing, he would have done so right now. "It looks as if I am the one who needs to stay with him for the time being. We need to find a hostel that is reasonably clean, reasonably spacious and features rooms with a crib and a bathtub. Do you think you are able to find us one down the street? I do not want to go hunting for a room with the child in tow; the fewer people who see us, the better. As they are sure to be looking for both me and the child, but not for you, it would be best if you were the one who checks things out, much as I am reluctant to let you walk around on your own."

The area was dangerous of course, as was all of Nar Shaddaa; but it was several notches more upscale than the street in which they had gone looking for the child, and mostly free of prostitution, so Eeth thought Raven would probably be fine.

Hearing that she would be the one to go find their accommodation was quite possibly the most welcomed orders Eeth could have given Raven, and she wasted no time in getting the search underway. There were quite a few hostels that looked good, and after gathering prices on each, she decided that the Outpost Hostel was the best fit for them. It was an inconspicuous building; Force, Raven had thought the place was a shop of some sort when she first spotted it. It might not be the absolute cheapest option available to them but it was clean, had top floor rooms with clear views, an easy escape and was almost impossible to access undetected without rocket boots or security keys. Pleased with her choice, Raven kept her head down and started back for their speeder where Eeth and Lyan were waiting for her.

* * *

Eeth had passed a rather uncomfortable hour with a youngster who turned out to be far too talkative for his liking. As he assumed that a simple command to be still would not work, at least not permanently, he tried to respond to the child's utterances and questions.

"'peeder?"

"Yes, we are sitting in a speeder."

"Man?"

"Which man? Me?"

"MAN?"

"Oh, that man. Umm… he has gone away."

"Man away?"

"Yes, the man has gone away."

"Mummy?"

"Your mother… has gone away, too."

Eeth's throat unaccountably tightened as he said that. He could not help thinking about another boy, forty years ago, who might have been spared a lot of pain if the Jedi had found him sooner. Well, at least this one had not got to actually meet his Hutt captor, he thought with some satisfaction.

After a fifteen-minute question-and-answer session, the boy started hunting through the crate of items Eeth had bought earlier. Eeth let him, as there was nothing breakable or dangerous in it. When he found a loaf of bread, Lyan's eyes lit up and he tore a huge chunk out of the loaf without further ado, taking some of the wrapping with it.

Eeth hastily poked around in the child's mouth to extract the piece of wrapping and produced a bottle of clean water from the bag, correctly surmising that he might be thirsty. The boy gulped the water down greedily, spilling half the contents onto his shirt in the process. Eeth realised that he would have to buy spare clothes. The outfit the boy wore was probably the one his mother had sold him in. It definitely had seen better days and had obviously not been washed since the sale. If he came to think of it, Raven and he did not have any spare clothes either without having access to the starship, unless one counted the few random items he had grabbed in the cruiser which might or might not fit either of them. They would have to take care of that problem later.

Eeth relieved the boy of his wet shirt and wrapped one of the adult-size guards' shirts he had taken from the Hutt's cruiser around his torso. Lyan leant back into Eeth's arms contentedly, munching his bread slowly and resting his head against Eeth's shoulders. Eeth was not quite accustomed to the warm and fuzzy feeling this caused inside him, and thus he was quite relieved when Raven turned up and told him about the hostel. Eeth counted his money. Their reserves had shrunk quite a bit after having paid the Toydarian and bought their access to the casino, but it was still sufficient for a few weeks in the hostel plus provisions, if the worst came to the worst. He hoped, of course, that they would get out of here considerably sooner.

Donning another one of the guards' shirts from the Hutt's cruiser, he lifted the boy up and threw the makeshift bag made out of a blanket over his shoulder. He told Raven to pick up the crate with their shopping. Without further ado, they left the stolen speeder behind, carrying their load to the hostel. The crate Raven carried was not heavy, per se, it was just unwieldy; the large packet of diapers seemed hell-bent on falling off the top at each opportunity and made walking with any dignity challenging.

As they entered the hostel, Eeth was aware that there was a certain risk that the staff would be alerted to look out for a Zabrak and a small human boy, but they would just have to take that risk. There were probably a million hostels on Nar Shaddaa, and most tried to stay in business by ensuring their clients' anonymity.

Ten minutes later, they had checked into a top floor room that held a private refresher equipped with a bathtub. Raven smiled; this was perfect. Before she could gloat over her success, however, Eeth was already giving out orders.

"You bathe him," Eeth told Raven once they had entered the room and Lyan had started exploring it, crawling under the bed and turning on and off the faucets in delight. "After I changed his soiled diaper, it is your turn."

"Uh, me?" Raven asked, eyeing the child warily.

"Yes, you," said Eeth firmly. "This is your mission, as well as mine, and you will do your part. Bathing a toddler is hardly rocket science."

"Says he who has actually bathed a toddler before," Raven shot back.

"There is a first time for everything," Eeth said, refusing to rise to the provocation. "You are intelligent enough to figure out how to do this. If you need help, let me know. I will take stock of our things and prepare something to eat in the meanwhile."

Raven scratched her head as she watched Lyan crawl up the sloped end of the tub and slide down again. His giggling was infectious, and despite wanting to remain all bent out of shape over this, she soon found herself smiling at his antics.

Okay, so how hard could this be? Raven figured that she'd just step through the process as if about to take a bath herself. It was as good a plan as any, right? Right! Thus, she filled the tub with enough warm water to be practical and checked that it wasn't too hot. Satisfied, she called Lyan over and started trying to undress him. This proved to be quite the task as he was excited and jumping around, pointing at things and pulling at the buckles on her boots.

"Come on Lyan, you want to have a bath? Baths are fun, right?" she said animatedly and couldn't help but smile at his giggles. Eventually, and after considerable effort on her part, Lyan ended up in the bath.

"Argh!" Raven swiped at her shirt with a towel that was fast becoming soaked. Apparently, he enjoyed splashing around, and given the crap he had been through, the padawan was reluctant to put a stop to his fun. Unsurprisingly, by the time Lyan was clean and had played in the water for another twenty minutes, it was hard to tell which of them had bathed, as they were both soaked.

Eeth, in the meanwhile, put their things away and prepared something to eat. There was a kitchenette in the corner of the room that allowed him to include a pot of hot soup in their meal. He listened in on the sounds from the bathroom and smirked occasionally when he heard a particularly vehement splash and a squeal from Raven. It was not that he intended to cop out of taking care of the child, though; he simply wanted Raven to take over her fair share of duties. Besides, he would probably get to spend more than enough time with the boy in the near future, as he did not want to risk exposing Lyan and himself and therefore would send Raven to do their errands.

"No! Stay! Stay!" Lyan whined and started to wriggle around as Raven tried to lift him from the tub.

"You hungry? Let's go find master Eeth and eat something." Raven hoped the mention of food might spark his interest, but it didn't work, and he kept at the squirming each time she tried lifting him out. Had Raven been a little taller and stronger herself, she would have just pulled him out, but she was scared that he might actually slip and wind up cracking his head open on the tiles. "Lyan!" She said, a bit firmer this time. "Stop wriggling, please, or I'll have to get master Eeth and then he'll be mad at you." The padawan tried clapping her hands to demonstrate, hoping the threat would work at least long enough to get him out of the bath. Raven knew that Eeth would help her if she called for him, but she had gotten this far and was determined to finish on her own.

Thankfully, the threat worked, and he stopped squirming long enough to allow the padawan to lift him from the tub. "No mad," he said, glancing at the door, his expression so heartbreaking that Raven couldn't help but melt.

"Aw, no he's not mad, good boy, thank you for doing as I said, Lyan," she encouraged, and started drying him off with one of the towels that had escaped the wrath of Lyan's bath tirade. Again, he seemed to like being dried and jumped up and down, laughing as he was swaddled in a towel and taken back into their only room.

Raven looked as if she had been in a fight with a sea monster; her hair was sticking up at all angles, one of her boots were unbuckled, she was soaked through and looked quite bedraggled. "I don't know what we are going to dress him in, but can you do it?" Raven asked Eeth, who was sitting at the table studying a map. As if to back this up, the child leaned over, his arms outstretched for Eeth to take him.

"Hafta Eeff," he called happily.

Eeth had been tempted to chuckle at seeing Raven's dishevelled look but he lost the chuckle immediately when, much to his amazement, the boy launched himself onto him.

"Hello, Lyan," he said awkwardly while trying to settle the youngster on his lap.

"Eat?" Lyan asked eagerly, pointing at the table.

"Yes, eat," Eeth affirmed. "But first we need to get a diaper on you. Padawan, can you hand me…" He broke off as it became apparent that the purpose of the diaper had already been fulfilled by the towel and his trousers.

"Lesson number one," he said in a strained voice. "Get a diaper on the child after the bath immediately. At this rate, we will either have to buy an entire clothing store or we will have to walk around naked. Get yourself as dry and presentable as you can without having fresh clothes available, padawan. I will take care of Lyan."

Raven was torn between horror and hilarity as she watched a wet patch form down her master's trouser leg. She opted to display the former, however, at hearing his strained tone. "Uh, sorry, master. I didn't know," she said and quickly took off for the bathroom to clean herself up before her facade lapsed and she started laughing at him.

Eeth threw the wet towel into the laundry chute, washed the child's nether regions again with a washcloth, dried him with a new towel, put a clean diaper on him quickly and then wrapped him into what was probably a scarf, which was all that remained from the clothes he had taken from the Hutt's speeder. Lyan cooperated quite cheerfully. Eeth sat him onto his bed while he pulled off his own pants and wrapped a sheet around his hips. Then he placed the food onto the table, sat Lyan on a high chair and sat down himself. "Padawan?" he called.

"Coming," Raven replied, exiting the bathroom while still pulling a tie around her hair. She stopped, blinked and raised an eyebrow at finding Eeth clad in a sheet from the waist down and Lyan wrapped in what looked like a scarf. "Uh, don't you two look handsome," she quipped, taking a seat at the table and not even trying to hide her amusement. The soup waiting for her didn't exactly look all that tasty, but nor was she willing to risk any complaints. Besides, she was kind of hungry for once.

"It is not as if we had many options," Eeth pointed out as he ladled soup onto her plate. "Padawan, you will need to do some clothes shopping, for all of us. There is a large shopping centre two levels further up. We will need at least two sets of clothing for Lyan, spare clothing for you and a pair of pants and a shirt for myself. I do not intend to stay on Nar Shaddaa any longer than we can help, but I would prefer not to make my escape with a sheet wrapped around my legs."

"Wait, you're letting me go by myself?" Raven questioned disbelievingly, fully expecting him to scold her for not paying attention and misinterpreting his instructions. After all, the mental picture of her master running for their shuttle clad in a sheet had been rather entertaining, and she might have missed something.

"That," said Eeth matter-of-factly, "seems to be the only sensible option. Even if the Hutt went to the effort to find out that I was asking questions about the boy and was accompanied by a young girl, you are bound to attract less attention than Lyan and I will. Changing your hairstyle will make it even safer for you. While you are gone, I will find out whether the hostel has a laundry service and I will look after Lyan. Call me if you encounter problems, or alert me through our bond. Once the boy is asleep tonight, we need to sit and plan our escape."

Raven nodded. They spent the rest of dinner discussing the best route to reach the shopping centre and rehashing the most prominent dangers one might encounter in this section of Nar Shaddaa. When they were done, the padawan changed her hairstyle around and emerged looking as different as humanly possible, without actually having recourse to a wardrobe. In fact, with her hair tucked up under a cap that had been among the things taken from Nash's ship, Raven now looked more like a boy.

"Padawan," said Eeth, "do not underestimate the dangers of this place. Be mindful of your surroundings and focus on the Force. It will give you a sense of impending dangers, and especially of pursuers."

"I know, I know," she said while pulling on her last boot and getting to her feet. "I got this. Promise." And Raven meant that, too. She wasn't scared.

"Pwad-ya-wan gone away?" Lyan asked disheartened, as Raven closed the door behind her.

"Yes, Lyan," said Eeth gently. "But she will return soon."


	4. Chapter 4

Eeth cleared the table and washed the dishes, ordered a large laundry bag from the reception, packed a sizeable stack of dirty laundry into it and threw it down the chute in the hopes that it would be washed and dried by tomorrow morning as promised. All the while, he was busy answering a curious child's questions.

When they had cleaned up, Eeth sat down and, after a moment's hesitation, pulled Lyan onto his lap. He started levitating some objects, which Lyan delightedly picked up on. Eeth ran him through all kinds of tests of his Force abilities, disguised as play, and was soon convinced that the boy was indeed very strong in the Force and that their undercover operative had been more than right to ask the Temple to pick him up.

All the time, though, he was slightly distracted because he was feeling quite anxious for Raven to come back. Letting her do the shopping, and in a shopping centre that was relatively safe, had been a reasonable choice, but that did not mean he had to feel comfortable with it. He was feeling more protective of her than he would ever have cared to admit! That, and he was less than thrilled at having to wear a bedsheet instead of pants…

* * *

Unlike Eeth, Raven was feeling entirely comfortable about this! Finally, she was allowed to do things that actually felt useful to her. It made her feel like she had a purpose as opposed to being stuck inside the Temple all day with her face buried in classwork, or relegated to Eeth's side because life was too dangerous and she was too inexperienced. Piffle.

Having been successful in her task to procure suitable clothing for them all, the padawan was indeed feeling very grown-up and Jedi-like. So much so that she had clean forgotten about her role and strode purposefully from the complex, bags in hand. It wasn't until she noticed people staring at her for longer than was typical, at least by Nar Shaddaa standards, that realisation dawned. Slowly, Raven began using the Force to conceal her presence, and although it was not enough to discourage anyone with a fix on her, it would stop additional unwanted attention.

Fortunately for her, by the time Raven reached their hostel, nobody paid her any mind. The problem with this was that the process had slowed her down somewhat. "Sorry I took so long, master," she said upon entering their room and tossed the bags on the bed. "There were just so many colours in men's pants that I couldn't decide on red or pink tartan," she joked, grinning as Lyan began making his way over to her.

"Pwad-ya-wan back!" he said, giggling as Raven picked him up.

"Well, then I hope you chose purple," Eeth replied drily, opening the shopping bags and starting to hunt through them. He was decidedly relieved that Raven had finally returned safe and unharmed.

"I was beginning to worry. What took you so long?"

She contemplated restating that choosing his pants had proven more time-consuming than expected, yet somehow didn't think it would go over too well. "People were beginning to notice me, and I didn't want to attract attention, so I used the Force to blend in. It slowed me down, is all," Raven explained, placing a rather tired-looking Lyan onto his bed. "Why is he so tired, did you have him doing push-ups and running laps or something?" Not that she was complaining; the peace and quiet was actually nice.

"We were doing Force work," said Eeth, "and he enjoyed it. I also think the anaesthetic would still affect him. Besides, it is nearly nightfall."

He pulled a pair of black men's pants from a bag and nodded his approval.

"Thank you for the trousers, padawan," he said. "Let us get Lyan into a clean set of clothes and give him something to drink. He will fall asleep soon, I am sure. We can make plans then."

He was already unwrapping the shawl from Lyan's body. For a child from the slums, the boy was relatively well-fed; his mother must have taken good care of him, considering the circumstances. Eeth put him into a one-piece sleepsuit that Raven had bought. Lyan was already yawning. "Lyan 'leep," he mumbled and obediently held out his hands and feet for Eeth to put them into the right openings. When that was done, he demanded, "'nink. Lyan 'nink."

"Nink?" asked Eeth, puzzled.

"NINK!" wailed Lyan.

"Do not shout at me," said Eeth sternly, upon which Lyan started crying.

"Oh, man. Now look what you did," the padawan sent to Eeth across their bond. She covered her ears, but despite this, she was teasing him. Mostly.

"Alright, alright. Sorry," said Eeth with a sigh and picked up the child in an effort to console him. This seemed to make things even worse.

"Lyan want mummy!" Lyan cried.

"I know," Eeth murmured in what he hoped was a soothing voice and tried to send some calming energy through the Force. "It is going to be alright. You will be fine."

He continued his consolations until Lyan calmed down and was reduced to whimpering quietly: "'nink."

"Would you like something to drink?" Eeth hazarded.

"Yes, Lyan 'nink," the child affirmed, giving him a teary smile.

"Padawan, I brought a baby bottle from the supermarket," Eeth told Raven. "Can you fill it with drinking water, please, and give it to me?"

Raven was fast to comply, Force, she would do just about anything if it kept Lyan from screaming again. Ten minutes later, the boy was sleeping, clutching the empty bottle against his chest.

"That went better than I had hoped," said Eeth in relief and unwrapped the bedsheet from his hip to pull on the new pair of pants.

"Nice pants," Raven stated, noticing that they were a little too big around the waist and a bit too long in the legs. Well, that was all they had, so they'd have to make do. She yawned, pulling on a shirt that would pass as both something to sleep in for herself and a spare for Eeth should Lyan target him again.

Eeth raised his eyebrows. "If you have any complaints about the pants, you are welcome to go and find some smaller-sized ones," he told her. "I do prefer them to a bedsheet, so if you are able to bear the sight of me, I will leave them on for now. Now, you told me you were starting to attract attention. Why was that?"

Raven was about to reply with some witty comment about doing her best to bear the sight of him, only to think better of it upon hearing his question. Why had she been attracting attention? Because she hadn't been thinking about her job. Well, actually that was not entirely true. Raven had been thinking a lot about her job, and what a spectacular success she had made of it. The padawan coughed unnecessarily, her nose scrunching. "Probably because I forgot about playing my part for a while. I was kinda proud of myself for pulling all this off today. Nar Shaddaa is a dangerous place, you said so yourself, and you let me find our hostel, _AND_ I managed to get us supplies all without incident. I guess I was feeling pretty good about myself over that."

"Padawan, a Hutt is after me," Eeth snapped, quite displeased with what he had heard. "You may bet anything you like that he has put a bounty on my head. Hutt are revengeful and they hardly ever forget about a grudge. He will not just try to get the boy back, he will try to hunt me down. The last thing we need under these circumstances is for an apprentice of mine to arouse attention. If you cannot manage to control your emotions and stick to your role, I will not be able to allow you to go out again."

"I know! But I didn't even look like me. I looked like a boy," Raven replied in her defence, yet still managed to feel guiltier than she had before. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to put you in danger. I really didn't."

"Have you not understood that everything is dangerous in this place?" Eeth demanded to know. "Nash the Hutt is rich. The bounty on my head would be sufficient to attract a lot of bounty hunters, some of which are quite good at their job. They will have thought about how we obtained information about the child. If the Toydarian merchant, the midwife or anyone else who watched us down there told them about us, they will have learned about your existence. There are more than enough blond humanoid girls around on this moon, so if you are out on the streets by yourself, I should not think that you ought to attract a lot of attention. Unless you forget yourself, of course. And that could prove fatal; if not to us, then to Lyan. Is that absolutely clear?"

"Yes, master. I said I was sorry," Raven defended, frowning at the floor. She hadn't thought it possible but he'd gone and made her feel even worse! She folded her arms. "Could you sneak aboard our ship and come get us?" If Nash had bounty hunters on their trail, then it made sense to get out of their way, Raven thought.

"Would you lose the attitude before we discuss any escape plans?" Eeth said sharply.

Wisely, Raven looked up at him and unfolded her arms, although her frown was there to stay. She didn't exactly have a lot to be thrilled over at the moment, after all.

Eeth gave her a warning look but decided to focus on the more pressing issue of escaping their situation.

"Both of us can probably disguise ourselves quite well," he said, "but if we take the child, we might attract too much attention. We need to find an inconspicuous way to leave the Hutt territory that will not compromise Lyan's safety. I have thought about your idea of sneaking aboard our ship and picking up the two of you but it seems extremely dangerous to me. The ship is heavily guarded and I have no way to board it that will not be noticed. At the moment, they have no way of knowing for sure that this is the ship they are looking for, so there are not that many guards. However, once I board the ship by taking out the guards or mind-controlling them, it will be obvious that this was a Jedi's work and there will be a pursuit on our heels in no time. Even picking you up would pose a risk, under the circumstances. Moreover, while our ship is fast, there are bounty hunters with faster ships. We could, of course, wait a few days until we return to the ship, but that might only increase their suspicions about that ship, and I honestly want to get us out of here as fast as possible. I was thinking about just paying for a trip to Coruscant on a public vessel, but the Hutt will be sure to check the outgoing spaceships for a Zabrak with a human child. Can you think of other options, or of strategies to make any one of these ideas work?"

He could think of several, but he wanted Raven to get used to setting her mind to such things.

"We could split up. That would throw out their search as the number of people they are looking for would be different. Also, disguising ourselves as different sexes and species would add to the confusion," Raven suggested, pleased that he wasn't going to continue dragging her ass over the coals for her earlier lapse.

"To be honest, I am not sure if a sex change would work that well," Eeth said, "at least on myself. You could always pass yourself off as a boy if you cut off your hair, and if we got a nice dress for Lyan, he would be a perfect little girl. Separating seems a bit more risky. I could hardly take Lyan since a Zabrak with a human toddler would look too suspicious, whereas it might be hard for you to explain why a twelve-year-old is travelling with a toddler without the company of an adult. We would need to add more people in order to make our disguise perfect. If we managed to find two grown-up females, at least one of them human, who want to travel to Coruscant, then you could join the human one together with Lyan, and she would pass off as a mother with her children perfectly. I could join the other one and act as if she is my lover. There are enough women around waiting to join lonely space travellers against a fee. The only question is whether our funds are sufficient for that."

He thought about this for a moment and decided, "Too complicated and too expensive. I could simply buy the services of a prostitute and ask her to board our own ship with me. If I strolled up to the landing pad, a woman glued to my side, chances are the guards will come to the conclusion that I am not the Jedi they are looking for. After all, there are more than enough Zabrak males around on this moon. I could take the ship, pick you up and be done with. What do you think?"

"I think a prostitute is a good idea," Raven agreed, clutching at her hair which she had pulled from the hat. "Maybe splitting up is too complicated, but, master, if making a more credible effort at passing me off as a boy will help our chances in either option, then I'd rather do it than not," she said, her tone serious. "It's only hair, and it will grow back."

"True," Eeth agreed. "However, if we go for my last idea, that will not be necessary. I would feel most comfortable with proceeding with that plan immediately. The less time our pursuers have to gather information and focus on our starship, the better. Can I leave you alone here with Lyan? My chances to find a prostitute who is willing to work with me would be best at night, for obvious reasons. I will give her a fake story with regard to what I need her services for, of course."

"Yes, master, 'course, but please be careful. Oh, and cover up your head. If people can't see that you're a Zabrak they will be even less inclined to suspect you," Raven said, unaware that it was now her who was nagging him for a change. The padawan knew he had to go but she was afraid to lose him. Thankfully, that train of thought led her to the countless hours he had forced her to meditate on the Jedi philosophy of non-attachment and, as much as it would pain her, she planned to meditate when he left.

Eeth nodded. "Yes, I had been planning to do that," he replied. "Good thinking." He tied his braids back into a knot and wrapped the scarf they had taken from the Hutt's cruiser around his head, turban style. With his new pants and the plain shirt Raven had bought him, there was not much resemblance to his earlier appearance.

"Better?" he asked with a small smile. "I will use the Force to conceal myself, too. Do not worry. The one type of place where they will not look for me too thoroughly is the Red Light District."

He headed for the door but, thinking better of it, turned back and hugged her briefly. "May the Force be with you, padawan," he said quietly. Then he left.

"And with you, master," the padawan replied, hugging him tightly all the while doing her best not to bombard him with a torrent of angst.

Once the door snapped shut, Raven immediately sat on her bed and began releasing her emotions into the Force. The philosophy of non-attachment was something she struggled with, although she had improved considerably since the incident with Prince James. She managed about forty-five minutes before Lyan began to stir, drawing her from the meditation.

"Hafta Eeff gone away?" he asked, his voice thick with sleep yet holding a trace of concern.

"Master Eeth will be back soon. Everything is alright, Lyan, go back to sleep."

"Lyan 'leep," he replied obediently, and much to the girl's surprise he was snoozing again within seconds.

"Force! I wish it were that easy for me," Raven said quietly and got back to her meditation.

Two-and-a-half hours passed by in which Lyan woke once more for a 'nink'. Raven was so glad that Eeth had figured out what that was before leaving him in her care! The meditation had helped to calm and centre her, but she could only meditate for so long, and soon the padawan was occupying her mind by getting them organised so that they could leave immediately when the time came. Eeth and Raven had nothing to take that couldn't be carried on their belts. Lyan's needs were far more complicated, though.

Half an hour later, a single bag sat by their door. It contained a full bottle, diapers, wipes and any clothing that Lyan had not yet soiled. Raven sighed, glancing at her watch for the tenth time that hour; she was worried about Eeth… She went out onto the balcony and sat down. The evening air was chilly, yet not enough to warrant a jacket. It felt good to get out of their room, too, as it smelled of mould and stale beer.

When it had been three-and-a-half hours with no word from Eeth, Raven was contemplating contacting him. The problem with that was that it might distract him. Sighing, she paced the room, but then she noticed that her worry was beginning to unsettle Lyan's sleep. Okay, so the padawan knew that leaving Lyan unsupervised would probably be frowned upon, even if he was in a deep sleep, but as time went on, still without any word from Eeth, Raven was starting to worry even more which wasn't helping things. Decision made, she secured the balcony and left to wait for her master downstairs. She paced the street outside their hostel, her gaze intermittently flitting from the end of the street to her watch. She kept at this for about ten minutes before deciding to check on Lyan, and perhaps meditate some more and attempt reaching Eeth through their bond.

As the door locked behind her, Raven immediately sensed that something was off, and sure enough, when she looked over at Lyan's crib, he was nowhere to be seen!

* * *

When Eeth had left, he first headed for the casino. Their borrowed speeder was still parked there. It belonged to the owner of their starship's landing pad and he needed to return it. The exorbitant parking fee at the casino left another noticeable dent in his budget, unfortunately, but at least he was able to retrieve the vehicle without further incident.

With the speeder, he made his way to a red light district in the lowest regions of this sector. Using the Force to cloak his presence, he made his way down the street, looking for a suitable prostitute. He did not want anyone who was drunk, addicted to death sticks or too unattractive to be plausible; and these turned out to be criteria that were quite hard to meet down here.

A Zabrak girl caught his eyes, maybe sixteen years old. She was leaning against a wall, looking slightly bored, but Eeth could sense a certain amount of anxiety underneath that unconcerned appearance. She was certainly pretty and had a well-developed body, but she had gone to far less trouble than most other prostitutes in this street to blatantly expose that fact. She wore hardly any make-up, her skirt covered all of her bottom and her top revealed only the cleft of her full breasts. What attracted Eeth's attention far more than her breasts – which he couldn't have cared less about – were her eyes: large, dark eyes that seemed alert and a little wary, a striking contrast to the dull expression on her competitors' faces. She was probably new to the trade. Eeth was indecisive for a moment; an inexperienced prostitute might turn out to be a bad actress, which could jeopardise the show he was intending to put on. For some reason, though, he was feeling drawn to her, as if the Force was telling him that this was the person he needed, and he had learned to follow such intuitions.

Dropping his shields, he crossed the street, gave her a significant look and smiled at her. She returned his smile, albeit rather reluctantly.

"What's your name, pretty?" he asked in as flirtatious a way as he could muster. He could be a good actor if need be, even when he despised the role he had to play.

"Kartha," she replied, batting her eyelashes at him in a brave effort to win a customer. "You looking for some fun, handsome? Only half a turgut."

As soon as she had taken him into the dingy room that was hers, she started peeling off her top, at which point he decided to drop all pretence.

"Keep that on," he said, sitting down on her bed. "I am not interested in sex."

"You're not?" she asked, perplexed and a little wary; she edged backwards toward the door slightly. "I'm not offering other services, though."

"Pity," Eeth said, his eyes resting on her face. "I need someone to stage an act with me. No sex, no violence, just a little bit of acting. And I will pay well. Much more than half a turgut."

"And what would that acting involve?" the girl asked cautiously.

"It would involve," replied Eeth, "joining me for a few errands and posing as someone who is very eager to have sex with me for a couple of hours, at most. I will then drop you off at a place of your choosing. If your acting is good, it will be worth one peggat to me."

That would use up most of his reserves, but then, he reasoned, if the girl's acting was good, he would not need any more Hutt currency.

Kartha's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "One peggat?" she asked sharply. "And how many bounty hunters are after you that would be willing to pay this much for a little acting?"

She was intelligent alright.

"Good thinking," Eeth replied calmly. "But the number of bounty hunters who are after me is none of your concern. They do not know who I am and what I look like, and if you play your part well, they will never find out. Besides, they are after me, not you. And finally, you look like the kind of girl who would prefer this kind of job to having sex with strangers, even if it involves a risk."

She suddenly looked revolted. "Absolutely," she said, sinking down onto a stool that stood in front of a washbasin. "I detest having to do this. But I have to make a living somehow, haven't I? And this room was the most I could afford."

It occurred to Eeth that she sounded far more educated than someone who had grown up in the slums ought to sound like. There were no Huttese words mixed up with her Basic either.

"You do not sound as if you come from here," he stated.

She gave him a crooked grin. "Neither do you," she replied.

"Oh, as a matter of fact, I do," Eeth replied drily. "I just had the good fortune to escape from here early in my life. How did you end up here?"

She gave him another wary look, but finally shrugged. "I grew up on Coruscant," she said. "My mother worked at the Iridonian Embassy and my father had a little trade venture. Suddenly, a year ago, my mother was charged with corruption and my father with tax fraud. I'm not saying they were innocent, but apparently they were set up; it appears that they annoyed a high-ranking Iridonian politician and this was his revenge. They received a tip-off before the were arrested, however. They only just had enough time to grab me and board the next ship out of the Republic, which landed us here. That was only the beginning of our unlucky streak. My parents took what little savings they had brought and set up a business. The first thing they did was try to cheat a Hutt. Well, they didn't survive it for long. The Hutt deliberately left me alive. She found it more entertaining to watch me struggle to make a living on Nar Shaddaa than to kill me, she said." The girl shrugged again. "So far, I'm getting by, though."

She was obviously making quite an effort to appear tough, and she mostly succeeded; Eeth was quite impressed. He could tell she had been truthful, too.

"Do you still have family on Coruscant?" he asked. "Or back on Iridonia?"

The girl gave him another suspicious look. "Why are you asking?" she demanded to know, suddenly sounding rather aggressive.

"Because I am planning on leaving for Coruscant shortly in a private spaceship," Eeth replied calmly. "If you asked for a lift as payment for your services, I could consider it."

Kartha's jaw dropped open. "A-and why would you do that for me?" she stammered.

Eeth was silent for a moment; he was wondering that himself. "I guess," he finally said quietly, "because I am still grateful that somebody gave me a lift out of Nar Shaddaa forty years ago." And having come back to the place, he felt as if he had not nearly repaid that debt.

Fifteen minutes later, Eeth returned to his speeder, Kartha at his side. The girl was still stunned with disbelief over the sudden prospect at getting a lift back to Coruscant where her aunt and uncle could take care of her. During the past months, she had saved every wupiupi she could spare for the trip, but tickets were expensive and it had been more than slow going. She was determined to make this work, both for Eeth and for herself!

* * *

Meanwhile, Raven was about to have a meltdown. "Lyan!" she called upon seeing the door to their small balcony ajar. Shit was trumps! Raven ran for the door at blinding speed, throwing it open. "Okay, remain calm," she told herself as she saw the kid climbing up on a fake potted plant to look over the balcony edge.

"Mummy?" he cried out into the street below.

"Oh, Lyan, I'm so sorry," Raven consoled, plucking him from the plant and hugging him close. However, the source of his tears was more than fear at waking up alone and missing his mummy; the child had quite a nasty gash over his left eye which was at the moment bleeding out onto his sleepsuit.

"Shhh, it's alright. I'll make it better, okay?" Raven reassured, taking him in and pulling the door shut. How he had opened it in the first place was beyond her; it had been locked! But then, Force-sensitive children were full of surprises, or so she was discovering.

"Owwee! Owwee!" Lyan cried, pointing to his head and managing to smudge blood into his eyes which elicited a scream.

"Force! Calm down, calm down, Lyan. It will be alright. Breathe like this," the padawan coached as she demonstrated deep breaths. Once he had stopped screaming, Raven lay him on the bed and used what Force healing skills she could muster to dull the pain. Thankfully, Eeth had left their basic medical supplies behind and it did not take her long to get him cleaned up. With a new shirt and, much to her utter horror, a dry diaper, the boy was far calmer. Still, he wasn't happy about all this and kept trying to pull the bandaid off, grizzling about having an 'owee!' Seeing little other option, Raven pulled some painkillers from their kit, dissolved the correct amount into some warm milk and fed it to him. This did the trick and he was fast asleep again in no time.

"Hurry up, master, what's taking so freakin' long!" Raven sent through their bond and slumped back onto the bed. This child was going to be the death of her.

Eeth was already hurrying because the surge of anxiety he had sensed through his bond with Raven had him worried. He raced through the still-crowded streets at the maximum speed he dared which was, fortunately, rather high since there was no such thing as law enforcement on Nar Shaddaa.

A quarter of an hour later, he barged into their room, the silly turban still wrapped around his head. He had left Kartha waiting in the speeder at the parking lot.

"What happened, padawan?" he asked, his eyes roaming the room; he heaved a sigh of relief as he found Lyan sleeping peacefully in his bed.

"Nothing of vital importance. Let's get out of here," she said urgently. Raven quickly swaddled a sleeping Lyan in his cot blanket, completely concealing the boy from outsiders, and handed him over to Eeth. "He's covered so no one should be able to tell if it's a boy or girl. We're packed and ready to go," she said while grabbing Lyan's bag and waiting for instructions.

Eeth was definite that Raven was being evasive about something, but she was right: it could wait. Lyan seemed to be alright, and thus, the most important thing for the moment was to make a quick getaway. He sent a sleep compulsion to the boy through the Force; it should prevent him from waking up. Then they left, unnoticed by anyone. Eeth had paid for two nights in advance, so he had a clean conscience on that count. The hostel might be surprised to be stuck with a load of rather strange laundry, though.

"The lady I hired is called Kartha," he told Raven quietly as they hurried towards the parking lot. "She is Zabrak and was stranded here on Nar Shaddaa. If our plan succeeds, we are going to give her a lift to Coruscant."

"That's one more person saved from life on Nar Shaddaa," Raven said, hoping to make him feel happy about having been able to help another in the course of their mission.

Eeth waited until she got into the speeder, handed Lyan to her and took up the pilot's seat. He decided against introductions, for now. He had purposefully not told Kartha about his true identity because it would have been foolhardy to trust her with more information than necessary. For now, she just needed to do her job, and Eeth needed to focus on flying.

Raven peered over at the woman taking up their passenger seat. She was very pretty and rather young, maybe in her mid-teens, yet seemed to be doing a commendable job at concealing her apprehension. "Don't worry, he always flies like this; you get used to it after a while," she said in an effort to offer some comfort. The comment was nothing she couldn't get away with as a slave, and given that Raven had no idea what story Eeth had told the woman yet, she decided to keep it short.

Kartha snorted in reply. She did not mind the man's style of flying; she was merely anxious about the task that lay before her, especially as she had no idea who the stranger sitting next to her really was, who was after him, and why. Eeth had informed her on their ride to the hostel that two more persons would accompany them, but he had told her nothing more than that. Therefore, Kartha was left to pondering the issue. From organized crime to law enforcement, anything seemed possible although either option left at her at a loss as to why the stranger would be accompanied by a girl and a toddler.

Not doing anything to solve the riddle, Eeth took the speeder steeply upwards, making for the highest levels and then for the landing pad. After some searching, he found a convenient place: a rooftop garden that opened up to the skies. It was deserted at this time of the night. Eeth quietly landed the speeder on the lawn and helped Raven get Lyan out. The garden was surrounded by a wall that was covered by bushes and thus not visible from the traffic lanes.

"You and Lyan will hide in the bushes by the wall," Eeth told her quietly. "Once we have got the ship, we will come and get you and then leave this place immediately."

He unhooked his purse from his belt and handed it to her. "In the unlikely event that I do not return by morning, you take a cab to Hookin," he said. "Hookin is the closest spaceport and has a lot of traffic to and from the Republic. There is enough money left to buy a passage to Coruscant on a freighter for you and Lyan. May the Force be with you, padawan."

He hugged her briefly and, without waiting for a response, reentered the shuttle where Kartha was waiting. And they were off.


	5. Chapter 5

As Eeth and Kartha rose into the sky and flew off into the night, Raven tucked the credits into her belt pouch, pulled Lyan into herself a little tighter and took cover in the bushes. Okay, so the bushes she had been left to hide in didn't look that comfortable. Then again, she had been in worse situations. At least they would be relatively safe here; there was no way to reach the spot Eeth had dropped them without clawing your way through a tonne of thorny scrub littered with rubbish and Force only knew what else. Of course, getting out wasn't going to be pleasant either, but then, if that were necessary, it would be the least of her concerns. It would mean that Eeth had been captured, or worse, after all.

Eeth had, of course, no such intentions but he knew that he was taking a risk and he also knew that he was not invincible. Trying to make their getaway as fast as possible was the sensible thing to do, however.

"Just for the record, I am Anath," he told Kartha while approaching the landing pad. She gave a jerky nod, a crooked smile on her face. "Right, Anath," she said, the expression on her face making it clear that she didn't believe a word of it, but was going to play along.

Eeth landed the shuttle and turned towards her. "Ready?" he asked.

She drew a deep breath. "Ready," she said firmly. And suddenly, there was a broad smile on her face, and she grabbed his hand and pressed a flirtatious kiss on his cheek. "Let's go, Anath," she trilled.

Between the two of them, Eeth thought, it was an award-winning performance. He was too focussed on their act to even feel revolted by all the kissing and petting and touching. The two grim figures who were lounging around near the ship were all the more revolted, and when Eeth noticed this, he just increased his efforts. He gave the impression of barely being able to disentangle himself from Kartha long enough to perform the checkout, and even that was impossible without her trying to slide a hand down his pants and him swatting her away playfully while she giggled infernally. As they made for the spaceship and Eeth opened the hatch and lowered the ramp, he could sense more than see the two onlookers mumbling to each other in obvious disgust, totally disinclined to approach, let alone attack him. As he lifted the ramp behind them, he called: "How would you like a night in the desert of Nal Hutta, love?"

"Oh, Anath," Kartha purred, her hands crawling under his shirt in a way that would otherwise have made him vomit, "that would be just wonderful."

The moment the hatch had closed behind them, he took two steps away from Kartha and rearranged his clothing. Too polite to voice his feelings (which would have resulted in a heartfelt "YUCK!"), he merely said, "That was quite possibly the best bit of acting I have seen in my life. Thank you. And now excuse me while I ready the ship for take-off. The sooner we get out of here, the better."

"That suits me just fine," Kartha said; she had reverted to her alert and wary self in a matter of seconds.

Five minutes later, they took off, with Kartha lounging in the co-pilot's seat. From the rear camera, Eeth could tell that their guards were already heading out onto the street, presumably intending to drink their failure off somewhere.

Eeth thought that this was about the first thing that had gone smoothly since he and Raven had landed on Nar Shaddaa. Without any sign of pursuers, he brought the starship up to the garden where Raven and Lyan were hiding. It was too full of trees to allow for landing a spaceship in it, but he had thought of that. With a laser beam, he neatly cut an opening into the wall, a few meters from the place where he sensed Raven and the boy. He then very carefully lowered the ramp into the gap.

Fortunately for Raven, Lyan had slept peacefully for most of the wait. However, even drugs and a sleep compulsion couldn't compete with the noise as Eeth descended in the ship above them. Holding up a hand to shield herself from the downdraft, Raven swaddled Lyan tighter in his blanket. "Shhh, Lyan. It's going to be okay," the padawan comforted him, gently smoothing his hair back with her hand before raising a finger to her lips, gesturing that he needed to be quiet. It worked better than she had expected, but the boy was still grizzling as the ramp descended.

'Padawan?' Eeth called through their bond. 'Get in, quickly.'

"Kartha, could you help them board?" he asked.

Kartha shrugged.

"Sure, why not," she said, making her way towards the ramp. "Need a hand?" she called down it.

"Yes, could you take Lyan while I jump up, please," Raven replied to Kartha's offer of help. It wasn't a high jump, but neither could Eeth safely land on the ground here.

"We're on, raise the ramp," Raven yelled, and once they began to make their ascent, the padawan ran into the cockpit. "Kartha has Lyan," she said in way of greeting and waited for instructions.

"You stay with them while I take us into hyperspace," Eeth ordered. He was already working on plotting a course fast and efficiently and he did not really need help. Besides, he was positive that Kartha had never flown a starship before, and while Raven was a little more knowledgeable, she still needed more instructions than he had time to give and would be of more use looking after Lyan to whom Kartha was a total stranger.

Sighing at being exiled from the cockpit, Raven made her way back into the main room where Kartha was trying to settle a grizzling Lyan.

"Pad-ya-wan!" the boy called, holding his arms open so she could pick him up.

"We should be in hyperspace soon," she told Kartha while taking Lyan and settling into a seat opposite. She hoped that Lyan's chosen form of address would not be detrimental to Eeth's plans, but, well, even if it were there wasn't a lot Kartha could do about it now.

Kartha merely nodded. She was tired and hadn't really listened. Besides, since Eeth hadn't introduced them, she did not know Raven's name and assumed that what Lyan had said was simply a distorted version of it.

A quarter of an hour later, the stars turned into streaks of light, showing that the ship had entered lightspeed, and Eeth set it on autopilot. There had been no pursuers so far. Now that they were in hyperspace, they were reasonably safe. Thus, Eeth got up and went to the ship's only other room. He needed to check on Lyan; Kartha would finally need to hear the truth about what was going on; and then they all needed to get some much-needed sleep.

"We just entered hyperspace, and everything seems to be in order," he said upon entering the room. "Are you alright?"

Raven gently placed a dozing, now smelly, Lyan on her bunk, stacking a couple of pillows either side of him just in case. That kid was slippery! She made a face at the smell just as Eeth entered.

"Yes, master, are you?" Raven knew the title of 'master' went in line with their agreed-upon story. Still, she didn't know what Eeth had told Kartha, yet, and was playing it safe.

"Yes," Eeth replied, sitting down on one of the chairs. "Everything went well. I think we should let Kartha know who she is really dealing with. You change Lyan's diaper while I do that. It is your turn."

Raven had no problem coming clean with Kartha; maybe if they did, she might lighten up a bit. The diaper, on the other hand? "Wait a moment. I changed the last one while you were out, it is definitely your turn," she replied, seating herself opposite Kartha once again.

"A soiled one or just a wet one?" Eeth asked with raised eyebrows.

"Does it matter? It was still gross." Which it had been! Raven figured if they were going to tell Kartha the truth, then she need not appear as a slave any longer. The timing couldn't have been better.

Eeth happened to disagree. "It does matter," he said sternly. "I told you that we are going to take turns with the soiled ones and that is what is going to happen. Changing messy diapers is not my favourite pastime either, and I still did so without complaint when it was last necessary. I will not do all the dirty work for you, though. Now get to it."

"If we are taking turns, then maybe Kartha should go next?" Raven suggested, clutching at straws. Of course she knew that it was probably pushing the friendship to question him more than once, yet with Kartha present, and a sleeping child, Raven thought it was worth the risk.

"Padawan," said Eeth in a deceptively mild tone of voice. "I gave you an order."

Kartha raised her eyebrows as she was finally catching on to the title she had heard used, again. "Are you Jedi or what?" she asked, visibly impressed.

"We are," said Eeth. "My real name is Eeth Koth, and this is my apprentice Raven who is currently pushing her luck. You know I have no tolerance with disobedience, padawan."

Not at all happy, but equally unwilling to escalate this in front of Kartha, Raven huffed and did as instructed.

"Pwad-ya-won make better," Lyan said sleepily, tapping at the bandaid on his forehead as Raven unsnapped his sleepsuit. She shoved a towel from their closet beneath him in case anything gross leaked out, moved everything out of his reach, took off his socks and … Ug! This was so gross.

"Poo poo, Hafta Eeff fix?" Lyan asked, pointing at Eeth.

"Master Eeth is a fraidy-cat, can you say FRAY-DEE-CAT?" the padawan coached while using her fingertips to remove the disgusting diaper.

Eeth snapped, "Padawan, I was the one who did this last time, and in contrast to you, I did it without raising a fuss. Why is there a band-aid on Lyan's head, anyway? Did he get hurt while I was away?"

There was a lot Raven could say to that, but Eeth's tone had her refraining from any smartassery. She disposed of the diaper, holding it out as if it were radioactive; if the smell was anything to go by she wasn't ruling out the possibility! "He fell out of his crib," she answered honestly while opening a fresh diaper and quickly putting it on him. After seeing how badly things could go if you weren't fast about this, she wasn't taking any chances.

"He did?" Eeth asked in concern.

He stood and knelt next to where Raven was busy getting Lyan back into his sleepsuit. When she was done, he rested a hand on the boy's forehead and monitored his condition. His brain seemed to be fine. Eeth peeled the band-aid off carefully and took a close look at the gash, which seemed to have closed quite well and was not bleeding any more. Satisfied, he took a medical kit from the cupboard, sprayed some disinfectant onto the wound and covered it with another band-aid.

"He must have done quite a bit of climbing to fall out of his crib," Eeth remarked as he worked.

Raven wasn't sure how to respond to that statement as she hadn't been in the room at the time. "I guess," she settled on and sat on the bed beside Lyan, far enough away so that her weight didn't cause him to roll around while Eeth was tending to his head.

Eeth decided to help Lyan fall asleep again with another gentle sleep compulsion. It was the middle of the night, after all. Raven's evasiveness did not escape his attention, however.

"You guess?" he repeated. "Padawan, were you not supposed to be looking after him?"

"I _was_ looking after him," Raven defended. "I was really worried because you had been gone for hours. I went downstairs hoping you would arrive soon and to wait for you out the front, but you never arrived. I wasn't gone long at all, yet when I came back I found him out of his crib, climbing around on the balcony!" Raven had felt pretty bad about that, but for the Force's sake, she had secured the freakin' latch before leaving.

Eeth was stunned with disbelief at hearing this. "Padawan, please remind me what the objective of this mission was," he said cuttingly.

"You know what it is, you don't have to make me feel worse about this. I already feel bad," Raven said, tucking her knees up into her chest.

Eeth frowned. "You will not tell me what I have and do not have to do," he said sternly. "Since you feel disinclined to answer my question, let me answer it for you. Our objective was to retrieve this child from Nar Shaddaa, safe and sound. You were left in charge of him and it was your sole responsibility to make sure that nothing happens to him. Did it occur to you at all that it might not be a good idea to leave him unsupervised?"

Raven's pride was smarting a bit here, especially so at being told off in front of Kartha. "He was asleep in a locked room," she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air for emphasis. "How could I have known that he was able to open a locked door? He's two."

"He is also strong in the Force, as you were well aware," snapped Eeth, "and that aside, he obviously managed to hurt himself even before he started opening locked doors. You grossly neglected your duty, and I think you know it perfectly well. But I am not going to discuss this with you at this hour of the night. We will talk more tomorrow. For now, we should all try to get some sleep. Kartha and I will take the upper bunks."

"Sure, thanks," said Kartha, trying hard to pretend she hadn't listened to every word of this argument. "I'm not that tired, though. I'm used to working through the night. If you need someone to man the cockpit…"

"Nothing is going to happen to us in hyperspace," Eeth replied. "Go to sleep. You need not wait for customers tonight, after all."

"Alright," she said, yawning. "You don't happen to have any clothes I could change into? I'd love to get rid of this stupid outfit. My thighs keep getting stuck to the chair. It did help my performance, though. Were you satisfied with it?"

"If you told me you were a professional actress, I would not be surprised," Eeth said drily. He pointed her to the closet and told her to pick some clothing in her size.

Raven rolled her eyes at the compliment. She was decidedly unhappy about being told off when Kartha had apparently done such a wonderful job.

The frown on Eeth's face deepened but he decided against starting an argument at this hour of the night. "You," he told Raven, "get ready for bed. We will have to take turns in the refresher."

The frown was noted and so Raven decided it best not to push him.

Twenty minutes later, a much cleaner-smelling apprentice emerged from the shower, and as Kartha entered the bathroom, Raven moved to check on Lyan. He was sleeping peacefully. Eeth was seated at the table taking notes on a datapad, but Raven was disinclined to join him. After a few moments of silence, however, she propped herself up on a pillow and looked at him. "I'm sorry, I messed up."

Eeth raised his head and returned her look.

"Apology accepted," he said quietly. "But that does not mean there will be no consequences. I need to be able to rely on you to put your duty first, whether you find it boring, are worried about me or have other reasons to feel disinclined. Tomorrow, we will have a serious discussion about your negligence. For now, though, it is high time we all got some sleep. Are you up to a brief meditation before we do so?"

Raven wanted to argue that he _COULD_ rely on her, that she did put her duty first! Yet for some reason, each time she deviated from his orders in what seemed like an insignificant, harmless way, the shit hit the fan! Sighing, Raven stood from the bottom bunk, still clutching at her pillow. "Yes, I'd like that."

Eeth sat on the floor in a cross-legged position and invited Raven, with a silent gesture, to sit on his lap. There was simply not enough space for both of them to kneel between the bunks.

Raven hesitated when he gestured to his lap. Surely he wasn't going to start spanking?! She looked from Eeth to their refresher door where Kartha could be heard showering, and then back again.

"I thought you might be most comfortable sitting on my lap," said Eeth drily. "If you would rather remain standing, however, that is fine with me as well."

"And I thought you meant, uh… Never mind." Sitting on his lap was preferable to the floor, and certainly better than what she had originally suspected. Besides, it wasn't often that Eeth offered her such closeness.

Once comfortable, the padawan closed her eyes, wriggled around a bit more and then dropped her shields. The thing about joint meditation was that it was reliably difficult to pick and choose which emotions one wanted to share. At least it was for a relatively new padawan. Thus, Eeth got bombarded with her feelings of self-pity, guilt and frustration. This was closely followed by resentment towards him for pointing out her failures, and finally, acceptance and remorse for having messed up on a mission. AGAIN! It was easy to feel bad for flooding their bond with these feelings; they were all so un-Jedi-like that it made her feel as if she was contaminating him with her rubbish.

Eeth, however, projected nothing but acceptance and encouragement through their bond. Offering one's negative emotions to their master was hard on any padawan, and he was pleased with how readily Raven did this and how she came to accept her failings. Doing so was very Jedi-like, in fact, and he tried to convey as much to her – while pushing his own emotional baggage to the background, for now. There was a lot of it but he could deal with that later. Raven's needs would have to take priority over his.

The encouragement she felt through their bond made her smile, and for a moment, she was pleased to have gotten something right. They continued to meditate like this for quite some time, all the while sharing and releasing emotions that they had accrued during the last few days. Eventually, Eeth drew the exercise to an end and Raven opened her eyes, feeling far lighter than before.

Her face flushed pink at having discovered that she had, at some point during their meditation, curled up in his lap. It was at that exact moment that she noticed Kartha was smiling at them. It was not a nasty expression, but more one of having witnessed a touching scene. Flushing even redder, and knowing how much this would be paining Eeth, the padawan slowly rolled onto the floor and knelt to face him.

"Don't tell me: bed, right?"

"Exactly," Eeth replied with a slight smile, trying to cover the brief moment of embarrassment he had felt. His rational self told him that there was nothing to be embarrassed about, but that did not mean he could not feel awkward about it. Still, he knew that his padawan needed more shows of affection than he felt comfortable giving, so whether he felt awkward or not was hardly relevant.

"Goodnight, then," said Kartha, giving both of them a brief smile, and climbed into her bunk.

"Goodnight," replied Eeth. He waited for Raven to lie in her bed and covered her with her blanket.

"Sleep well," he said softly. "You may sleep in tomorrow. We need to get back into Coruscant time, and right now it is only evening there."

"Sleep in?" Raven feigned scepticism. "Alright, who are you and what have you done with my master?"

Eeth raised his eyebrows. "Sleep," he ordered, his voice firmer now.

"Ah, there he is," the padawan countered. However, she thought that this was about as much smartassery as she could get away with and closed her eyes.

An hour later, Eeth was still awake, listening to Raven's slow, even breaths, Lyan's indistinct mumbling and Kartha's soft snores. Normally, meditation helped him clear his mind but this night, it had had the opposite effect. Their evening meditation had stirred up a feeling that he frequently sensed in Raven but had lately rarely encountered in himself: guilt.

He had gone to Nar Shaddaa, for what purpose? To confront his fears? What had he thought revisiting the slums would accomplish? For his fears to magically disappear? He should have been wise enough to know better. The only thing he had accomplished was endangering his padawan, and possibly even the child they were meant to retrieve. They had scraped by on sheer luck. What if they had needed to infiltrate the Hutt's household? What if Nash had caught up with him? Or what if Raven's negligence, caused by an impulsiveness that Eeth was entirely aware of, had had more serious consequences for Lyan? She was only twelve years old and yet he, Eeth, had knowingly led her on a dangerous mission, one that had forced them to split up, which had left Raven with a burden of responsibility that she was not yet equipped to bear. All that, and he was no closer to vanquishing his fears than he had been before this trip because, as he ought to have known, dealing with negative emotions required time and effort, rather than a short trip down memory lane. Eeth had the sneaking suspicion that his eagerness to go to Nar Shaddaa had been caused by a desire to shirk that effort. He had always disliked working with soul healers, revisiting his past and examining unpleasant memories, especially when that brought up such feelings of helplessness and vulnerability. He hated to admit it but what he had really sought when he had volunteered them for this mission was an easy way out of all that unpleasantness. And that was entirely against his values and ideals. He should have been honest with himself; he should have accepted the inevitable and asked for the services of a soul healer, rather than burdening Raven with the consequences of his own emotional baggage, leading her into danger and entrusting her with more responsibility than she should have been expected to handle. He should most definitely not have tried to shirk his duty!

After their return, Eeth decided, things would have to change. He would put their mission status on hold for a while so Raven could catch up on her classwork and he himself could start working with a soul healer. And when they resumed their fieldwork, it would be with missions that were appropriate for a padawan of Raven's age. He was not going to argue the Council's assessment of that again. He was under no illusion that Raven would be thrilled with that decision but then, she had sworn to obey him. That, and she was not entirely without blame here either.

With all these thoughts going through his mind, it took a long time for Eeth to eventually fall asleep.

The following morning Raven was not woken by Eeth, but by Lyan. "So much for getting to sleep in," she grumbled, sitting up and rubbing at her eyes. She sensed that Eeth, to, was awake and opened one eye to find him seated at the table writing what she supposed was their mission report. "There is gaffer tape in the toolbox, can we gag him?" the padawan said in way of greeting. Truth be told, the boy's giggling was kinda infectious and she was smiling, just a little bit.

Eeth gave her a faint smile in return. "This would be one of the drawbacks of travelling with a two-year-old," he said. "I am surprised that Kartha can sleep through it. I will take care of breakfast. Go and get ready for the day so the refresher is free when she wakes up."

The ship was really rather small for four people but then, the trip was not that long.

"Maybe I should wake her, then; if I don't get to sleep in, nobody should." It was a joke, of course, but Raven wasn't too sure how Eeth would take it, firstly because attempting humour with him was always hit and miss; and secondly, Raven thought she sensed a weariness in Eeth today, more so than the previous evening.

Eeth just gave her a pointed look in return and pointed her to the refresher. Then he set about preparing breakfast, which included porridge for Lyan. Thankfully, the boy did not seem to be picky about food. Of course, children who grew up in the slums could rarely afford to be.

After going about her usual morning routine, Raven emerged from the refresher dressed in a comfortable pair of cargo pants and shirt, her hair combed but still damp. Sitting on her bunk, the padawan deftly did her braid and glanced over at Eeth who was supervising Lyan's rather messy breakfast. She opened her mouth to offer help, only to close it again when Lyan dumped his spoonful of food onto the table, tip-truck style, sound-effects and all. Yeah, she was staying out of this one.

"Lyan, DO NOT do that again," said Eeth sternly, "or I shall take it away."

Lyan gave him an obstinate look and loaded his 'tipper' once more, dumping it onto the table.

"That's IT," snapped Eeth. "We are done eating."

He took the plate and spoon and brought them to the small kitchen counter. Predictably, Lyan started screaming. When that had no effect on Eeth, who simply stood and glared at him, arms folded across his chest, he threw himself onto the floor and banged his little fists against it. When Eeth still did not do anything but glower, Lyan finally resorted to sobbing heart-brokenly, upon which Eeth sighed and picked him up. Lyan immediately threw his arms around his neck and buried his head in the crook of Eeth's neck.

"Eat?" he asked in a timid voice.

"Alright," said Eeth. "But no more throwing food around. Understood?"

Lyan nodded.

Raven blinked, her mouth slightly open. Had she dared do anything like that, Eeth would have done a whole lot more than glare. She looked from Eeth to Lyan, who was now eating quietly, and then back again.

Eeth caught Raven's look.

"Padawan, he is two years old," he said patiently. "What would you have me do?"

The look Raven gave him now was bewildered, but she was spared from answering his question as apparently, not even Kartha had been able to sleep through that showdown. And indeed, Kartha yawned and stretched on her bed. When she noticed that the others were up already, she sat up slowly.

"Is it that late?" she asked sleepily.

"Later," Eeth replied. "But never mind. It is not as if we have anything much to do during the trip."

Kartha gave him a thoughtful look. "You know, I still cannot believe that I found people willing to take me back to Coruscant for free, and on top of that," she pointed out, "you aren't even taking liberties." It was true: Eeth had shown zero interest in her sexually.

"Indeed," said Eeth drily, "nothing could be further from my mind."

She grinned, jumped from her bed and disappeared into the refresher.

Eeth turned towards Raven. "Sit down and have breakfast," he said.

Raven did so without comment, seating herself on the other side of Eeth so that she was well out of food-tossing range for Lyan. Not that it seemed likely that he would start that up again!

"Maybe Kartha can look after Lyan for a while after breakfast," Eeth said when Raven had helped herself to some porridge. "You and I need to have a serious talk."

"Or maybe we can not, and just say that we did?" Raven replied. After all, the idea of a serious talk did not exactly thrill her.

Eeth did not dignify this with a response. He merely waited for Raven to finish breakfast. In the meanwhile, he kept entertaining Lyan, who had finished his food quite peacefully, by putting small items in front of him which the boy levitated in delight.

"Force-sensitive children have it easier in some ways," he told Raven quietly. "They are quick to trust others who are strong in the Force and to establish an emotional bond with them. Lyan is not only remarkably docile, but also not particularly shy or scared for a child who lost his mother less than a week ago and ended up with total strangers. This is an experience that Jedi often make when retrieving children who are to be trained at the Temple. They sense an instant connection to Jedi and they also seem to sense our good intentions. He will hopefully settle in quickly at the creche."

"He is strong in the Force," Raven agreed. "I'm sure he could become a great Jedi some day." She took as long as humanly possible to finish her breakfast and was picking individual oats from the side of her bowl when she met Eeth with a curious expression. "Does my file say anything about who found me on Chine?" She had often wondered, although this information had thus far been withheld.

"The file I received from creche did not contain details about your birth family or the circumstances of your retrieval, no," Eeth replied. "Your creche master would have made mention of it only if he had felt that there was a specific reason to. However, the information is available from the archives if you are interested."

"I might be," replied Raven thoughtfully. "I can't remember anything from before I came to the Temple. Apparently, I was only months old, though, so it's hardly surprising."

Eeth nodded. Initiates and new padawans were not usually given any detailed information about their birth families, let alone allowed to contact them, since that tended to create emotional conflicts. Once a padawan was secure in their role with their master, they were permitted to explore their past if they so desired. Eeth did not think that Raven was quite there yet but he was not opposed to the idea of retrieving her files once she was. He just hoped there were not going to be any unpleasant surprises because he had not lied: he possessed no more information than Raven did.

The padawan picked the final oat from the side of her bowl and started clearing the dishes. "You done?" she asked Kartha when her plate was all that remained on the table.

"Yeah, thanks," Kartha said. "It was much better than the stuff I used to feed myself on in the slums. Shall I wash the dishes?"

"We do not have enough water for that kind of luxury," Eeth replied matter-of-factly. "Just put them in the steriliser unit. Instead, could you keep Lyan entertained for a while? There are holocubes with star maps and other pictures in the cupboards; maybe those will keep him interested. I need to check a few things in the cockpit and have a word with my padawan in private."

"Sure, why not," Kartha replied, noticing the grimace on said padawan's face with a curious expression.

Raven would rather change Lyan's diaper than have this conversation with Eeth, and apparently it showed on her face. Still, there wasn't much she could do about it at this point, and so she followed him without complaint.


	6. Chapter 6

As Raven entered the cockpit, she noticed it was rather small. She doubted there would be much room for Eeth to swing anything, but then, it wouldn't be the first time he'd surprised her in that way. Thus, the padawan was disinclined to hurry this along and dragged her feet.

Eeth, however, had little patience for dawdling. "Come, padawan," he said sternly, beckoning for her to enter.

Slumping into the co-pilot's seat, she met him with a piteous expression. "Can we skip the part where you make me feel any worse than I already do and just get this over with?" she stated more than asked. It was at that moment that she realised that if he did plan to spank her in here, it would almost be worth it just to see how he planned on finding the room! Almost.

"Padawan, I am not interested in how you would like this done," Eeth snapped. "I am not at all sure that you understand the seriousness of what you did. You left the room while you were supposed to be guarding a child, a child that was totally dependent on you, a child that you knew dangerous people were after, and a child that was the only objective of our mission. Were you thinking of your duty at all when you made that ill-advised decision or were you just thinking about your own desires?"

"I was thinking about you and where you were. I was also thinking that some air might help to clear my mind. I thought that the chances anything could happen to Lyan in that short time, given the precautions I put in place, were so limited that it would be okay," Raven explained.

"Well, it was not," said Eeth quietly, and he sounded more resigned than annoyed now. "It was an immature decision. Maybe you are simply not old enough to be entrusted with the amount of responsibility you had to carry. I sincerely regret now having brought us in a situation where I had to leave you to your own devices. And I will talk more about this later." Raven's face crumpled at hearing all that but Eeth continued, his voice taking on a sterner edge, "For now, you will pay the price for your negligence – and your disobedience. I told you to stay with Lyan, and that was not what you did. You know what such choices will earn you, even if you did not think of it at the time."

He pointed at the co-pilot's seat. "Bare your bottom, stand on the seat and lean over the backrest," he ordered because this was about the only position, in this cramped cockpit, that would give him access to Raven's backside.

Raven just stood there and stared at him, and for once, it wasn't about stalling over punishment. Eeth's words replayed in her mind: It was an immature decision, you are simply not old enough, I sincerely regret having brought us… Raven's throat developed a huge lump, and she had to clench her jaw to swallow it lest she start crying. She looked from the chair to Eeth and then back again, all the while trying not to blink. It wasn't easy, though, and soon her eyes were burning so much that she was forced to blink, sending a flood of tears that she had been trying to hide rolling off her cheeks and onto her tunic. This was very uncharacteristic of Raven, so much so that she turned her back on Eeth and got up on the chair to do as he said, in an effort at hiding it.

Eeth noticed Raven's distress and hardened his heart against it. He knew that his words had stung; he had meant them to. And he was going to address the hurt they had caused, but not now. Right now, Raven was going to receive the punishment that Eeth felt she richly deserved.

Unfastening the clasp of his belt, he said, "When you have a duty to perform, it is never 'okay' to take a break from it, whether it be for five, ten or fifteen minutes. Your duties take precedence over your desires. And that goes tenfold during missions. I do not want something like this to happen again."

As he talked, he pulled the belt from its loops and folded it over. He could not raise his arm as high as he ordinarily would have but he made up for that in force, bringing the belt down onto Raven's bottom in a hard swat.

This drew a pained wail from Raven, despite having done her utmost to pull herself together; she was struggling with this. She was also indulging in self-pity, which was adding to the heartbreak she felt at Eeth's words. Consequently, Raven gave in to the punishment and was crying well before the pain became too much for her to bear.

Eeth still dealt out a dozen solid strokes because anything else would have felt like an incomplete punishment to him. Then he rested a hand on his crying apprentice's back, patting it lightly.

"This part is over, padawan," he said quietly.

By this stage, Raven had her face buried in her elbow, her hips were almost side-on and her ass felt as if she had sat on a dune cactus. Still, she did her best to straighten up, which, given her position, resulted in little more than sliding to her knees, both hands reaching to soothe her backside. That had really fucking hurt. "What do you mean by 'this part'?" Raven sniffled out when Eeth's words had had time to register.

"What I mean is that I will expect you to perform one hour of additional meditation on duty every night for a week," said Eeth while putting his belt back on. "Furthermore, you will help out in the infant creche every Sunday for the next two months. This will be an excellent way of learning to accept responsibility for small children."

Okay, so the extra meditation Raven had kinda expected, and the creche duty, although unexpected, probably wouldn't be as terrible as cleaning moss off rocks in the Temple's gardens. She slid from the chair, swiped a sleeve across her eyes and pulled up her pants, wincing as she did so. "Can I go now?" she asked, because it was all the padawan could get out at the moment without dissolving into yet more tears.

"No," said Eeth. "There is more that I need to tell you." He was not exactly keen on doing so, however, so he searched in his pocket for a handkerchief and handed it to Raven before continuing to speak. He was entirely aware that he was stalling.

Raven accepted the handkerchief warily. "More?"

"Yes," said Eeth. He hesitated for a moment longer, wondering how best to approach this. Finally, he said, "I need to apologise, padawan. Not for having punished you just now. You deserved it because you know better than to act against my explicit instructions. However, something like this should not have been allowed to happen in the first place. This mission posed too many risks and placed too high a burden of responsibility on you. Several Council members told me so and I refused to listen to them because I wanted to go to Nar Shaddaa for reasons of my own. That was irresponsible of me. It was an error in judgment and I will have to work on that before I trust myself to take you on missions again. Therefore, I will request to put our mission status on hold for the next two to three months. Both of us will focus on our duties at the Temple during that time. And then we will start with missions that are appropriate for your level of training and work our way up from there."

"Wait. What!" Raven stiffened, turning on him, her expression livid. "Too many risks for me? Too high a burden for me? And then because I made one mistake, ONE, on this 'incredibly hard and well over my head mission' that I PULLED OFF, by the way, you're trying to tell me that I wasn't up to it? That you want to put our mission status on hold for two to three months because you messed up!" Raven wasn't buying the whole 'it's me, not you' thing. Thus, before Eeth could get a word out she turned on her heel and strode from the cockpit, almost ripping the hinges clean off the door as she exited. She didn't care if Kartha was there or if she disturbed Lyan!

Alright, that had gone over about as badly as Eeth had expected. Still, while he was somewhat sympathetic (Force knew how indignant he would have been if his master had dropped something like this on him at age twelve!), he would never allow Raven to walk out on him.

Coming after her, he snapped, "Padawan, come back here at once. You will have every opportunity to voice your thoughts and objections but you will also do me the courtesy of listening to my answers."

"I don't care what you say or how you paint it. In the end, you think I'm not good enough because I made one mistake. Well, if one mistake is all it takes for you to downgrade my mission status then perhaps I should just quit now and save us all the trouble because I'm not perfect!" Raven said haughtily, throwing herself onto her bunk.

"I neither said nor implied that," Eeth said sternly. "Get up and join me in the cockpit. You might not care what I have to tell you but you will still listen to me until I tell you we are done. I give you three seconds to obey my order."

"Or what?" she said, swinging her legs over the side of her bunk to glare at him. "You'll bust me down to Temple simulations?" Raven was rarely this … wait, correction, Raven was _never_ this defiant, and it wasn't at all a comfortable feeling. She folded her arms. Her ass hurt, her heart hurt, and she was barely refraining from openly crying if only because Kartha and Lyan were watching this mess play out.

"No," said Eeth. "I will add to your punishment until you see fit to comply with my instructions. Is that what you want?" He was actually giving her a reprieve here since he was making allowances for her distress, which he thought was not entirely her fault; under different circumstances, he would already have started swatting.

Raven didn't like confronting Eeth at the best of times, let alone doing so with a captive audience; it was very difficult not to squirm, look down, run, start apologising or all of the above. That said, the girl had been his padawan for over a year now, and she stood to face him, arms crossed. There was a reason the Force had paired them; Raven was no coward even if sometimes that courage was misplaced, or in this case, outright insanity. "Nothing you say will change how I feel about this. The only thing it will achieve is pissing me off further," she said, leveling him with a look that would have frozen over Mustafar.

"That will not prevent me from saying what I have to say," said Eeth coolly, pointing her back to the cockpit. One more word from her, and he WAS going to start swatting. The glare he pinned her with conveyed as much.

Annoyed and frustrated as she was, Raven was not actually crazy. So, when he pinned her with that look, she decided that doing as he said was going to be the lesser evil here. Besides, fighting him beyond this point would require her to either accept being swatted and carried into the cockpit or become physical about it herself. The latter was not going to happen for a multitude of reasons. Most importantly, it went against her morals to fight without justifiable provocation; disobeying his orders was not exactly the right sort of provocation, and so she did as told.

"Alright, padawan," said Eeth, sitting back down in the pilot's seat because there was simply not enough space for two people to stand in the cockpit, and he doubted that Raven would want to sit. "First of all, you are entirely right. Except for your lapse of judgment yesterday, you did well on this mission. That said, you might still have been injured or killed if things had gone differently. Had we been forced to enter Nash the Hutt's household, things would have looked very bleak indeed. Your age and level of experience simply do not qualify you to meet a challenge on this level. And, as I said before, that fault was entirely mine. I should not have taken a twelve-year-old padawan on this mission, and what happened yesterday simply brought this home to me effectively. Your lapse of judgment was not the reason for my decision to put our mission status on hold, it was merely what got me thinking about my own lapse of judgment. I am truly sorry for that, not only because it is causing you distress right now but also because it put you at risk. I thought I could somehow deal with my past by going back to Nar Shaddaa but I realised now that what I will really need to do is to work on my emotions until I have gained more control of my fears. That will take a while, and once I have accomplished it, it will be safer for both of us to start with missions that pose a limited amount of danger and work our way up from there. That will make you no different from any other padawan your age. Diplomatic missions are what we ordinarily start our careers with. They are not a punishment. Besides, I certainly do not intend to make us undertake diplomatic missions until you are knighted, so there is absolutely no need for you to go up in smoke."

Raven still wasn't buying his 'It's not you it's me' take on this for a second. Yet she stood quietly, listening to all that he had to say without interruption. It was not that she lacked compassion for him or his situation, it was more that she didn't believe it: Eeth was invincible, didn't make mistakes like this and his emotions and soul didn't feel like they needed to be healed. Not that Raven had any idea what warranted such intervention. Ultimately, it didn't matter if the reasons behind his orders were considered fair or not; what mattered was that she obeyed those orders, or so she had been led to believe. Well, she could get that much right this time. "Can I go now?" she asked, no longer indignant, yet still unwilling to completely soften.

Eeth regarded her silently for a moment. Then he rose, put two fingers under her chin and lifted her head, forcing her to look at him.

Raven didn't fight him, yet her eyes quickly became overbright. She wasn't about to start up with the childish sniffling again, though, and so she squared her jaw and tried to swallow the lump in her throat.

"Padawan," Eeth said quietly. "I could not have borne it if something had happened to you on this mission simply because I was so bent on defeating my own fears. Had I not taken you to Nar Shaddaa in the first place, I could have spared you the disappointment that you are experiencing now and I sincerely regret that I did not do so."

He withdrew his fingers and regarded her silently for a moment. "No, you may not leave yet," he said finally. "I would like to meditate with you. Kneel, stand or sit, whatever works for you."

Sighing, but unwilling to fight him further over this, Raven knelt in the only spot she could find as sitting on anything was entirely out of the question. "What do you want me to meditate on?" she asked, shuffling around to get comfortable. The cockpit floor was not exactly soft, and so she summoned their medkit and shoved it under her knees. The lid was spongy.

"Just enter a meditative trance and link with me," said Eeth softly.

Usually, he limited those areas of his mind that she had access to during their meditations, not because he wanted to be secretive, but because he felt she could not handle an unorganised onslaught of emotions. This time, he still shielded her from the worst of it but he deliberate exposed her to the full extent of his feelings for her: his affection, his protectiveness, his sense of responsibility towards her; furthermore, the shock he had felt when, during his meditation, he had realised into what danger he had brought her, as well as the regret he felt about his decision. He was feeling far from invincible at the moment, and that ought to become quite clear to her after what he was offering to share with her.

Raven was surprised that he was allowing her to 'see' so much of his personal thoughts and feelings; it was not usually something he shared so openly. At first it made her physically flinch, yet after a moment or so she began to relax and was able to sense his feelings about the mission on Nar Shaddaa. Eventually, Eeth called the meditation to an end, and the padawan met him with a curious expression. "Why do you regret taking me to Nar Shaddaa? You know I would have been horrified if you had made me stay. I know that you want to protect me, but equally," she looked up at him, her expression genuine, "I don't want anything to happen to you either. I don't want you to hurt over your past," she said with all the conviction of someone naive enough to think saying such a thing would actually help.

Eeth gave a half-smile. "What I regret," he said, "is having procured the mission in the first place. There are countless Jedi who could have done it just as well. I could have dealt with my fears in some other way, for example by talking to a soul healer, which I was trying hard to avoid. I should have waited with going to Nar Shaddaa until the time had come when I actually felt comfortable about taking you. There are enough other missions around that involve less of a risk, and they are not all about sitting at conference tables either. Larivan was fine. Nar Shaddaa was not. We simply were extremely lucky."

"Lucky," she agreed, and she looked contemplative. "There were also some skills in there, too. I'm not completely without use, you know," she felt compelled to mention.

"I did not say you were," said Eeth, a sharp edge to his tone. "We were still lucky that we were not brought into a situation that required skills you do not yet possess. Such as hiding your presence without my help."

"Hey, it was not exactly easy for me to remain completely still and focused while cramped between a wall and a cooler with all that shit going on. I worked hard to do that, even if you did help me. You make it sound like it wasn't an achievement just because I couldn't have done it without you."

Eeth was beginning to lose patience with his padawan's refusal to see his point. "That is not what I said and is not what I meant either," he snapped. "If you ever get killed because you end up in a situation in which your skill is not sufficient to ensure your survival, feel free to ask for a posthumous medal for achievements because you made an effort. That will, unfortunately, not bring you back to life. Nash the Hutt would not have spared your life just because your skill is more than adequate for a twelve-year-old padawan. This is real life we are talking about, not school. It is not about receiving a passing grade, it is about achieving a mission objective without being killed. Do you see the difference or would you prefer writing an essay on it?"

Even had she not, Raven would hardly have admitted to it with the threat of an essay looming over her. In fact, she did understand but thought it was he who didn't get it. Disinclined to push it, Raven shook her head. "No, I don't need to write about it." She stood, tossed their medkit back onto the shelf, rubbed her ass and stretched out her legs, well, as much as was possible in their cramped confines.

Eeth looked at her with narrowed eyes. "I am not entirely convinced," he said coolly. "Shall I give you a complete list of padawans who were killed in the field because they were either arrogant or their masters overestimated their abilities? I do not want you to end up on that list and if I need to make you write a ten-page essay in order to make sure you understand this, I will."

"No, I don't need a list. I said I didn't need to write an essay," Raven repeated, holding up her hands in placation. "Can I go now?" Eesh, all she had wanted to do since this mess started was go sulk on her bed! Yet it seemed as if this was asking too much.

Eeth gave her a scrutinising look. "Go to the treadmill and blow off some steam," he finally said. "You will hopefully find it easier to be reasonable after you have worked out a bit. I will relieve Kartha of her babysitting duties."

Raven resisted the urge to respond with "FINE!" if only because, well, the idea of working out on the treadmill didn't sound like a bad option. It wasn't sulking on her bunk as she would have hoped for, but it was still preferable to talking about her lack of skill and Eeth's regrets over taking her on this mission. Wordlessly, the padawan turned and left the cockpit, changed into sweats and started running.

Once the five-kilometre marker was hit, a sweaty, and somewhat worn-out, apprentice hit the stop button and caught her breath. Thanks to the sweat, her ass now stung more than ever, yet she doggedly ignored this for the time being. She wasn't sure if Eeth had a specific time limit in mind. Well, given his prickly mood today, she was pretty sure that if he did, she'd know about it soon enough.

Eeth, however, was busy hunting through the closets for a new sweater for Lyan who had poured juice over his. Luckily, the ship, while cramped, had been well-stocked for this particular mission and the closet held a sizeable stack of children's clothes. While divesting Lyan of his sweater, Eeth racked his brain for something that would keep them occupied before the one-and-a-half days of remaining travel time were over. It was only mid-morning and he had already run out of ideas for how to keep an energetic toddler busy.

Kartha was less of a problem. She had asked him for access to the ship computer's database and was currently reading up on the galactic events of the last year, which she had almost entirely missed out on. She had hunted through their store of clothes and was now gladly dressed in an oversized red sweater and a pair of rolled-up green denim pants. Both were in Eeth's size but she didn't care.

"Take a shower if you like," Eeth told Raven as she emerged from the closet-like space that held the treadmill. "And if you can, try to come up with something for Lyan to do. I am running out of ideas."

Experience had taught her that working out after having had your ass handed to you was not entirely pleasant; it stung! A cold shower would fix that, though, and thus she was fast to comply. A short while later Raven emerged, dressed in the cargo pants and shirt she had gotten for their mission to Larivan.

"I found games on our way here," Raven suggested, thinking Lyan might like some of them. With one hand rubbing absent-mindedly at her left butt cheek, she opened the drawer and pulled out a mini handheld game of galaxy detectives. This particular game wouldn't suit Lyan, but it was sure going to keep her entertained for a while.

"Padawan, I asked you to find some way to entertain Lyan, not a way to entertain yourself," Eeth said as Raven made to settle down with her mini game. "Has it occurred to you that I might like to have a workout myself? It is your turn with Lyan. I am not going to do all the work."

"No, you asked me to try and think of something, and I did," Raven replied, annoyed. Frowning, she tossed the game onto her bunk. "Fine, I'll play with him, then."

Eeth rose swiftly and folded his arms across his chest. "Without the attitude," he said, his tone of voice making it clear that she had better lose said attitude fast or Kartha and Lyan were going to witness a rather embarrassing scene. Their presence was probably the only reason Eeth had not swatted her yet.

Raven glared at him for a moment. It would seem that today they were getting on each other's nerves! Well, given that the outcome, should she push him, would be far worse for herself, the padawan lowered her gaze and nodded. Her ass still hurt, so exacerbating that was to be avoided at all costs.

The truth was, Raven didn't mind playing with Lyan that much. As long as he didn't require changing at any point, it was kinda fun. The two had a great time sorting through different animals on her datapad, playing puzzle games, and when he tired of those, she pulled off her socks and started playing puppets. But it wasn't just any ordinary puppet show. This was an extravaganza, as such things went, complete with a makeshift stage.

"Astrophysics is not a pointless subject, Padawan!" Raven said in a mock-Eeth tone and made the mouth of one sock move around. This went on for quite some time until Lyan decided he wanted a turn, so she pulled off his sock and pulled it over his little hand. "Like this," she demonstrated and clapped when he got it.

"Pwad-ya-won play wiff Lyan," he said, trying to make the puppet speak with mixed success.

Eeth smiled a little at their antics as he emerged from the treadmill closet after about two hours of strenuous working out. While he was not as restless as Raven and had no trouble sitting still for a whole day if need be, he enjoyed exercise and he liked to test his physical limits. Thus, he was pleasantly exhausted and felt far more relaxed than he had that morning. He took a shower, prepared some nondescript lunch and put Lyan down for a nap. When the boy woke up, Eeth allowed Raven to continue playing her game while he engaged Lyan in another round of levitation practice.

"Master?" Raven asked some time later. "If you had to choose between Jorella, Lok and Mustafar, which planet would you say 'pharples' are found on?" She was lying upside-down on her bunk, one foot up the wall and the other dangling over the side. The fact that she was engaging him in a semi-playful way without being forced to was her way of showing that she had forgiven him, well, mostly.

"Lok, why?" Eeth asked absent-mindedly; he was busy looking at pictures with Lyan. Just like Raven had done in the morning, he had decided to show the boy pictures of animals on his data reader, and Lyan had reacted with great enthusiasm. "Banthaaaaa!" he crowed and looked at Eeth expectantly. "Yes, Bantha," Eeth said patiently. "Padawan, it will be your turn next."

"I know, I know," Raven replied, but with Eeth's correct answer she had been transported to Lok and was now engrossed trying to find the next lot of clues.

"Master?" Raven spoke up ten minutes later. "This is for the win. The surface of Foundry consists mainly of: mines, factories or snow?" she asked, waiting with bated breath.

"Nerf," said Eeth patiently to a still excited child who was pointing at another picture in an endless series. "Narf!" said Lyan excitedly. "Is Narf big?"

"Yes, Nerf are very big," said Eeth. "It is factories, padawan. Why do you not do research if you want to know these things? I give you thirty more minutes, then you take over here. And you are lucky because he has soiled his diaper just now and I will be the one to take care of it."

"Because this is the last question and you know all the answers," Raven replied and let out a delighted whoop at having caught up to the bad guy. Without looking up, she pulled the neck of her shirt up over her nose to block out any smell and watched as a mob of enforcement agents chased her crook through each of the places they had visited and caught him.

They managed to get through the rest of the day reasonably well. Lyan proved relatively easy to satisfy. When they tried to put him to bed at night, however, he cried for nearly an hour, asking again and again for "nyash" and his mother. None of them managed to identify what "nyash" was; it might have been a stuffed toy or something to drink or a ritual, but it was obviously something that Lyan felt was missing, just as his mother was. Eventually, Eeth used the Force to calm him down, and soon he was asleep.

"Well," said Eeth, sitting back down at the table to check his mission report for errors, "tomorrow is going to be hard. We have exhausted all the entertainment this ship has to offer, I think."

"True," said Raven, who was thinking much the same. Oh well, they'd just have to deal with it. She shifted around on her chair a bit. Her ass no longer hurt as it had earlier, but Eeth's belt rarely failed to leave a lasting impression, especially so without any healing. They sat in silence for a moment before Raven finally worked up the courage to ask something that had been on her mind since their earlier 'discussion'. "Why do you think you need to see a soul healer? Wouldn't you be more comfortable talking with someone like Lakhri?" Eeth wasn't one to wear his heart on his sleeve and nobody knew that better than his padawan. She was concerned about him, though, which was what had prompted her to bring this up despite knowing how it would make him feel.

Eeth was silent for a moment. He was indeed not entirely comfortable talking about this and it showed in his slightly evasive answer. "Lakhri is my former padawan, not a trained soul healer," he said. "It would neither be fair to burden him with my emotional baggage nor is he equipped to help me get rid of it."

Raven was pretty sure that Lakhri wouldn't see it has a burden to help Eeth. That he wasn't qualified to do so? Well, that she hadn't really thought about. Another long, albeit comfortable, silence drew out in which Raven contemplate ways in which she might help him. Not surprisingly, she came up with very few and all of those involved not talking about it and staying out of trouble. Sighing, she let her head fall into her palm and closed her eyes.

Eeth was quite happy not to be forced into a conversation about his "emotional baggage." Therefore, he picked up his datapad again and said quietly, "You had better go to bed soon, padawan. Lyan might wake up early again."

The truth was Raven was rather tired. Having spent most of the day pissed off at Eeth over his edict to bust them down to what she considered baby missions, among other things, was not exactly normal, and it had worn her out. Still, it was nice to have forgiven him, and vice versa, and so she was reluctant to leave what was once again his comforting presence. She laid her head on her arm, yawned and was content to simply be for now.

When Eeth noticed that Raven was practically falling asleep on the table, he firmly helped her up and ushered her first to the refresher, then to bed. For once, he decided to forego their evening meditation. They had meditated for a long time today and Raven was tired.

"You are not getting out of your week of additional meditations, though," he told her semi-sternly as he tucked her in. "They start once we have safely delivered Lyan to the creche."

"Force forbid," Raven replied through a yawn and curled up to sleep.

As expected, the following day of planned activities did not keep Lyan's interest for nearly as long, and as he grew frustrated with the final leg of their journey, Raven was not sure what else to do with him.

"Here, master, please take him. I'm going crazy; he's driving me crazy!" the padawan complained and scrubbed at her eyes. She too was bored and frustrated with the journey, and having Lyan to deal with on top of that was beginning to wear at her patience.

"Four hours to go and we are home," Kartha said, hoping to lighten the mood a little. But Raven just glared at her.

"Another four hours! That's forever," she complained, slumping into a chair.

Eeth threw her a reproving look.

"Whining and complaining will not change that," he said. "It will just make the remainder of this trip harder on all of us. Meditate or work out for half an hour. I expect you to have yourself under control after that. In contrast to Lyan, you are not two years old."

Thankfully, sitting was not uncomfortable as it had been the previous day, and given that Raven wanted to keep it that way, she blew out a sigh and went to change into some sweats.

The run was just enough to vent her frustrations without completely exhausting her, and there was no more whining, at least not from Raven. Lyan, on the other hand, had had enough, and by the time they docked at the Temple, the boy was well and truly ready for a change of scenery.

"Where will Lyan go now, and did the Embassy find Kartha's family?" Raven asked as she followed Eeth down the ramp and into the Temple.

Raven's question was answered when they left the hangar and emerged into the antechamber where a young female human creche master and three Zabraks were waiting. Kartha's face lit up immediately.

"Aunt Tranith!" she cried out, throwing herself upon a woman. "Uncle Morath! I'm so glad to be back!" The third Zabrak, who was apparently an official from the Iridonian Embassy, looked on with a benign smile as Kartha hugged both her aunt and her uncle repeatedly, trying hard to suppress tears.

Lyan, on the other hand, clung to Eeth like a burr. He hid his face in the Jedi master's robes and refused to even look at the gentle dark-skinned creche master who was approaching them.

"This is Lyan, then?" she asked quietly. "I'm Master Shelda, and I'm in charge of the creche group he has been assigned to. I've read the report you sent to the Council. The boy has been through rather a lot, hasn't he?"

"Yes," Eeth replied, "and it appears that he is unwilling to let go of me presently."

Raven smiled at seeing this but remained silent as everyone around her went about meeting and greeting.

"Well, that's only natural," Master Shelda replied. "He's seeing me for the first time, and he's already had to deal with a lot of changes. Besides, it's past nightfall and he's probably tired; not a good time for a child to face an entirely new situation. Could you consider taking him to your quarters for the night? The two of you could bring him to the creche tomorrow morning, when he's well-rested, and help him make the transition. Master Yoda will also be there to assess the boy's strength in the Force, but after your report, it's already fairly clear that there is no reason not to accept him to the Temple."

"Very well," Eeth replied after a moment's hesitation. "We can order a cot and some equipment from the commissary; it should not be a problem."

"Thank you," Master Shelda replied with a smile. "I will send you my coordinates, and you can drop by once Lyan has had breakfast tomorrow morning."

They said goodbye to Kartha, and then they were on their way, Eeth carrying Lyan on one arm with his bag slung across his other shoulder. Lyan's head cautiously emerged from the folds of Eeth's robes, and he took curious glances at the corridors they walked and at the beings that strolled down them.

Raven, for her part, was simply happy to be back in the Temple. Sure, Nar Shaddaa had been fun, and she had enjoyed their mission. Well, mostly. The last part of it, she could have done without. Lyan seemed curious about everything around him; the Temple probably looked like nothing he had seen before, after all. For a moment the padawan wondered if this was how she had reacted. Probably not, considering she had been but months old at the time.

All thoughts of her own arrival at the Temple, Lyan, Kartha and their mission flew out the waste hatch when they reached their quarters. Racing ahead of Eeth, she palmed open their door and ran directly for her bedroom. "Mmmm, bed," she cooed to herself, cuddling into the pillow and enjoying the familiar smell of the Temple's detergent.

The first thing Eeth did was to order a cot, diapers, a few childrens' books, toys and a baby bottle from the commissary. Lyan usually drank from a cup, but Eeth had noticed that drinking water or milk from a bottle before falling asleep seemed to soothe him. Maybe he had been used to it when he had lived with his mother.

He had just completed his order when a message from Lyan's creche master popped up on the comm unit. It informed Eeth that before Lyan's transfer to the creche, a healer would check in on him in the morning, making sure that he had no conditions that needed to be treated or might be infectious to other children.

Lyan eagerly explored his new surroundings while Eeth confirmed the appointment with the healer and the creche master. When he rose, the boy's face lit up. "Eat?" he asked hopefully.

"Yes, I suppose we will have to find something to eat," Eeth replied.

"Padawan?" he called. "Would you be good enough to join us and order something to eat? Preferably something that might appeal to Lyan."

"Okkayyy!" Raven yelled from her bedroom. She had used the time Eeth was organising Lyan to unpack and put on a load of washing.

A moment later she emerged, datapad in hand. "I know he likes mashed pumpkin because I fed him some while we were waiting for you in the hostel," she stated, placing the pad on a kitchen bench. "This has tonnes of games that Lyan would like," Raven announced proudly, booting up a program called 'learn your colours'.

"Better order some normal food for him," Eeth said. "He is too old to be fed baby food. Best order a variety of dishes and we will see what he likes. If there is some bread to go with it, he ought to eat that, at least. He does not seem to be overly picky, anyway. And I think he has played with datapads quite enough for a while. I would prefer for him to explore his surroundings and get a bit of … exercise or whatever you call it with children, before he goes to sleep."

True to his words, Lyan had discovered that it was fun to jump from the sofa and was currently trying unsuccessfully, but cheerfully, to jump back up.

"But, I like mashed pumpkin. That's how I found out he does, too," Raven said and crossed her arms when he vetoed her datapad suggestion as well. "Fine then, you obviously know what he wants and needs a lot better than I do, so why don't you order dinner instead?"

"Because I cannot do everything at once," Eeth replied severely, "and you need to learn. If you insist on ordering mashed pumpkin, then go ahead and do so. But lose the attitude."

"Lose the attitude," Raven muttered in a mock-Eeth tone as she moved to do as instructed.

Raven did not move as quickly as Eeth. Before she had reached the terminal, he had grabbed her upper arm, bent her forward and applied a very hard swat to the seat of her pants.

"That," he snapped, "was not what I meant by losing your attitude. Is that clear or do you need me to continue?"

She had felt his presence follow and had known that if he had heard her, she was probably about to cop it. What she had not anticipated was the force behind it which would have been a home run had the man been batting. "Ow, oww!" she cried, jumping around in his grasp and rubbing in an effort to ease the sting. Raven would have agreed to anything if it would keep him from landing another smack like that one. "No, master. I'm sorry," she said contritely, trying to cover the fact that a single swat with his hand had brought tears to her eyes. Well, it wasn't the first time.

"Good," Eeth said curtly. His patience had been rather sorely tested during the past two days, and he did not want his padawan to get into the habit of cultivating a sassy or disrespectful attitude; especially a padawan who had a tendency to let her mouth and her temper get her into trouble anyway.

He turned back to find Lyan attempting a jump from the top of the sofa's backrest.

"No!" he barked, jumping across the room just in time to catch the boy as his foot got caught on the edge of the sofa and he was about to fall head-first onto the floor.

"Force!" Raven shouted, at seeing Lyan almost do a header into the floor, and despite the fact that Eeth had just broken her ass, both hands flew to her mouth as he only just caught him.

Lyan started bawling in fright, and the very heartfelt scolding he received from Eeth was probably not helping either. Nevertheless, he quieted down after a few minutes and headed off to explore the bedrooms.

Feeling guilty at the trouble they were both causing an already stressed-out Eeth, Raven quickly ordered a selection of dishes for their dinner and disappeared into her bedroom where Lyan had been headed last time she looked.

"I'll play with him," she said, wanting to give her master a chance to unpack and perhaps have a cup of the disgusting tea he liked so much.

"Thank you," Eeth replied with a small smile and headed, indeed, towards his bedroom to unpack.

"This way, come on," Raven called, as she crawled between two laundry baskets with a sheet draped over the top. The pair had been playing 'chase the pwad-ya-wan' for half an hour before the door chimed the arrival of dinner, and Raven scooped up a still giggling Lyan and placed him on the couch. "No jumping," she said in a serious voice. Then, once satisfied that the kid was not about to kill himself, she took the plates of food to their table.

Setting the table proved more entertaining. "Spoon," Raven coached, making a big fuss when Lyan pulled the correct object from her hand and put it onto the table. "Poon" he announced proudly, grinning at her. This went on until the table was set, and with Lyan struggling to be put down, she took his hand and lead him to Eeth's door. "You want to knock, see if master Eeth is home?" she asked, and covered a chuckle when he pounded his fists on the door, shouting: "Hafta Eeff!

Eeth actually had to laugh at that, and this was a rare occurrence indeed. He opened the door, still chuckling. The contents of his bag had been put away, and he had changed into a Jedi outfit.

"Thank you, Lyan," he said. "And thank you, padawan. This looks good. Lyan, you will need a pillow to actually reach the table."

Lyan clapped as Raven summoned a pillow from the couch and, much to her surprise, the padawan could feel him using the Force to augment her effort. Very slowly, she withdrew her influence until Lyan was floating the pillow all by himself. "Good boy, can you land it on the chair?" she asked, pointing to the seat. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite accurate enough to make it first attempt but had it by the second, and was quickly lifted to sit.

"Mmmm mashed pumpkin, you want some?" she asked, recalling that he had enjoyed it on Nar Shaddaa. Today, however, Lyan wasn't interested. "Weird, he loved it the other day."

Eeth did not have all that much experience with children's eating habits, but it did not seem to be a cause of concern for him. "Maybe he simply does not want to eat the same thing every day," he said. "Or he does not feel like mashed pumpkin. Most adults do not want to eat the same things all the time either if given a choice, after all. Lyan did not have a lot of choices on Nar Shaddaa but maybe he is just discovering that life with the Jedi is different in that regard, and wants to experiment? Just offer him other things until he picks one."

Shrugging, Raven picked up a forkful of Eeth's meat and noodle dish instead, and it was a hit. Unfortunately, the noodles were far too slippery to eat with a fork so Lyan had great fun pulling out one noodle at a time with his fingers and slurping it up. Dinner was truly a feast after the starship's packaged garbage, and Raven ate every last mouthful with a newfound appreciation.

Once everyone had finished eating, Raven looked over at Eeth. "I'll bath Lyan if you clean this up?" she hedged, not sure what he wanted her to do. What was certain, however, was that the boy needed a bath. His face, shirt and hands were coated in noodle sauce and despite a huge grin on his face, he was a sticky mess.

"Thank you, padawan," Eeth said with a small smile. He cleared away the dishes and garbage. When he was just about done, the ordered items were delivered, so he set up the cot and brought Raven a set of pyjamas and a diaper for Lyan.

"Everything alright?" he asked mildly, gazing at the puddles on the floor.

Raven met him with a slightly abashed expression as he had entered to find her sitting opposite Lyan in the tub, playing battleships with his shampoo bottles. "Yes, master. Ten minutes more?" she hedged.

"As long as he is happy to stay in the tub," Eeth replied. "Force knows he could use the bath." There had been no opportunity to bath him on the starship, and nobody had felt inclined to squeeze into the small shower with a two-year-old toddler.

Half an hour later, Lyan was lying in his bed, fast asleep. When he had started to cry for his mother, Eeth had sent him a wave of soothing energy through the Force and a light sleep compulsion; it had worked better and faster than he would have expected it to.

"Before you turn in," Eeth told Raven, "I believe one hour of meditation on duty is in order."

"Aw, really? We just got back. Can't we start this tomorrow?" Raven pleaded.

"We have already postponed it yesterday," said Eeth sternly. "You will start right now."

Disinclined to push the point, given he seemed to be lacking patience for that today, Raven went to her mat and sat down with a huff. An entire hour meditating on duty was not exactly how she wanted to spend her time right now. It was then that an idea came to her. "Will you meditate with me?" This sort of assigned meditation always felt punitive to Raven, so she didn't typically ask, but you had to be in it to win it. Right? Right!

"I will meditate with you when you are done," Eeth said stoically. "This will not be a replacement for our customary evening meditation, after all."

Okay, so Raven had kind of expected that. She let out another huff, this one more forceful than before, and tried to get comfortable. An hour spent meditating on anything was an ordeal for a fidgety personality such as Raven, so an hour on something as mundane as her duty? Horrid, just horrid.

When Eeth finally allowed her to stop, the padawan was well and truly over meditation, and the look she gave him said as much.

Eeth, however, insisted on their evening meditation.

"We can make it a moving meditation if you prefer," he said. "And we will make it a short one. But we WILL meditate together."

Moving meditation was preferable, and the padawan made a mental note to request that tomorrow night when Eeth made her do the hour on duty! Why she hadn't thought of it before was beyond her. It was enjoyable to meditate with Eeth, and so with the addition of movement, it wasn't as bad as she had anticipated.

Ten minutes later, Raven was in bed, and Eeth followed shortly afterwards. That turned out to be a wise idea, for Lyan decided to make it a short night and woke them at five in the morning. He was yelling for "Haffta Eeff" and "Pwad-ya-wan" so loudly that they were both at his bedside in a heartbeat. Their attempts to coax him into sleeping some more were entirely unsuccessful. Eeth was reluctant to use another sleep compulsion. He had the impression that the excitement of spaceship travel and ending up on another planet with unknown people, in addition to jet lag, was catching up with Lyan and that suppressing these feelings would need a rather stronger sleep compulsion than he was comfortable administering. He finally decided that they should all get dressed and have breakfast.

Later that morning, a healer popped in, examined Lyan and pronounced him essentially healthy, if slightly malnourished.

Saying goodbye at the creche was tearful, on Lyan's part, but with the help of the Force, he finally accepted his new creche master as a person he could trust. Moreover, the presence of other children his age helped a lot to distract him. By the time Eeth and Raven left, he had started playing with two little girls who were gliding around on toy speeders.

"This is the exact creche group you will be working with for the coming eight weeks," Eeth remarked as they made their way back to their quarters. "That ought to make Lyan happy."

Contrary to popular belief, Raven was actually quite an introverted personality. Thus, all the children, noise and running around had her wrinkling her nose. She started fidgeting only to still upon noticing Eeth's expression. "Him, yeah. I'm not so sure about me, though." Sure, the padawan had enjoyed playing with Lyan well enough, but an entire creche group? If nothing else, that was a lot of diapers…

Eeth, however, was not going to relent. He had been there himself, after all, and he was confident that the experience was going to do Raven good. Soiled diapers notwithstanding.

* * *

A/N: Yay! You've reached the end of 'Going Back in Time' – one our shorter stories but, as you hopefully have noticed, important for both Eeth's and Raven's development. Thanks for all the feedback, reviews and IMs; it's all appreciated and makes us smile to see so many people enjoy what we write. And many thanks for staying with us during Eeth's and Raven's adventures and for giving us such encouraging feedback! We hope you'll join us for the next instalment in the series. In 'Boring Diplomacy', Eeth and Raven are sent on one hell of a boring ass mission, but if you've read this far you probably know that life is rarely dull for our two Jedi... We hope you guys like. If you do, or even if you don't, leave us a review. We love to hear what you guys think.


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